


Copacetic

by ilyena_sylph, Katarik



Category: Fast and the Furious (2001 2003 2006 2009)
Genre: Chromatic Character, Community: polybigbang, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:31:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarik/pseuds/Katarik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All right, O'Conner, who you got in mind?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Copacetic

**Author's Note:**

> Post-_Fast and Furious_. Spoils _The Fast and the Furious_, _2 Fast 2 Furious_, _Fast and Furious_, and _Los Bandoleros_. Takes place immediately after _Fast and Furious_.   
> Summary from dialogue in _2 Fast 2 Furious_.

Rome's first clue that life ain't as *copacetic* as by now it really ought to be is when he hears Carter Verone's name come up again, a little over a year after the trial where Fuentes got his rich ass tossed into jail.

When he busts in that night to tell Brian about Verone getting his not-as-rich ass back *out* of jail, it takes one look at Brian's face to see Brian already knew, and that Brian's already got a plan.

See, that's the thing about Brian -- dude's always got a plan. Rome's all right with that, because somebody's got to, and it ain't him. Rome doesn't like to plan. Can, but why the hell should he bother? That's what Brian's for. Planning makes it too easy to get all focused on what might be coming and forget to deal with the fist coming at your face.

So Brian can plan out what's gonna happen, and Rome can deal with what *is* happening. Division of labor and all that shit. Rome's down with that.

Except sometimes Brian's plans are *shitty*. Like right now. Like hell Rome's going into witness protection, and ain't *no* chance in hell Brian's going to work for the goddamn Feds. Bad enough he'd been stupid enough to be a pig at all, now he's gonna go be a *Fed* pig? No.

Only yes, apparently, because that's when Rome finds out that the Feds have been tugging at Brian for months, trying to pull him back in, and Brian hadn't thought none of that was worth *mentioning*.

"It's not like I was going to *do* it!" Brian tells him, throwing one pale hand in the air, his eyes narrow and a deep, angry-dark blue, his soft mouth tight. "They didn't have anything to offer that I wanted."

"You're gonna *now*."

"Now it's different," solemn and soft-voiced, all of Brian's 'this is how the world is gonna go' cool showing in his calm face.

Rome crosses his arms over his chest and glares at him. "Because now they do?"

"Yeah. Now they do."

"'Cause, what, you really gonna trust them to keep their end of any deal you make?"

"Rome, you saw the shit Verone's lawyer pulled at the trial. He's got reach higher than we could ever hope to. And Bilkins played it straight with us so far, despite L.A. Even Markham played it straight with us."

Rome snarls, an angry sound that rumbles low in his throat. "This is *bullshit*, Brian."

"...Think I don't know that, Rome? It's bullshit that he got out, and believe me, I *don't* like that they've got us over a barrel with this. But if we stay here, we're both dead -- in ways I'm not liking thinking about, bro."

"Goddamn rats," Rome mutters, and glances away from Brian's eyes, his hands clenching into fists against his arms. Verone holds *grudges*, the little dick. Probably has a little dick, too. Asshole. "This can't be the best plan you got, man."

"It's the best one I've got right now, and since we need to do something fast..." Brian shoves his hand through his hair, raking it back off his forehead. "I can work it. I hate it, I don't *want* to do this -- I spent too damn long away from you already to do it again -- but if we just run, anywhere we go he'll track us. You know how close the racing and drug scenes run, cuz."

He flicks his gaze back when Brian admits he doesn't want to play this damn game, doesn't want to go play cops and robbers and take off again, and then nods. "Too close." It's an agreement, and they both know it, even if Rome admitting Brian's right doesn't mean Rome's going to stop bitching.

"Yeah. We just have to put up with this shit long enough for them to get the son of a bitch back behind bars, and then no *way* am I staying. I don't want back on that side of the fence that much, bro."

Rome laughs, grins at him, the smile spreading slick and wide over his face. "Good to know you ain't crazy *all* the time."

"Not all the time," Brian says, grinning back at him, and then he's moving, getting over into Rome's space and reaching enough to pull him in.

Rome knows he's crazy, but there's crazy and then there's crazy enough to not want this, have this, cup his hands around Brian's hips and lower his head to press a closed-mouth kiss to the dip of Brian's collarbone, his shirt brushing Rome's chin, his cheek. Rome ain't nowhere near that crazy, and he never has been.

Brian wraps his hand up around the back of Rome's neck, pushing into the kiss, and he's moving like he doesn't give a damn about what anyone else wants from him, like there's nothing under that moussed-up head but pinning Rome to whatever they hit first. Rome's all right with that plan, and Brian doesn't have to tell him he doesn't want to walk away this time for Rome to know it.

That doesn't make this shitty plan okay, but it comes close.

"You get your ass killed working for those pigs, I will personally wreck your car," Rome tells him later, muffled by Brian's throat, Brian's pulse beating strong and steady under Rome's bitten-sore lips.

Brian squeezes the back of his neck. "Like I'd die and let you run my garage solo."

"*My* garage, punk," up and moving, crouching over the warm, solid stretch of Brian's pale body, and Brian wrestles him back down, bites at his throat and his collarbone, and Rome laughs out his moan and pushes into it again and knows Brian's gonna be all right. They gonna be just fine.

***

Mostly where they stick him ain't so bad. Detroit, Chicago. Cities, where Rome can lose himself in crowds until something comes up and he leaves for another city. People ask him where he's from and he gives all kinds of bullshit answers. Never says Barstow. People ask where he lives, and what he thinks is Miami, what he thinks is *Brian*, and he rattles off whatever apartment he's staying in this time. It was a trailer once, too familiar, and he'd managed to claw Bilkins' number out of the pigs and then snarled at him for ten minutes.

His next place after that was a house. White picket fence, yard, June fucking Cleaver behind him. There's a dog next door and everything. Bilkins' sense of humor can be vicious.

Then he smarts off to just the wrong agent and gets moved again, right where he doesn't want to be.

That's why Rome spends a goddamn year in a garage in the middle of rural fucking Nebraska. It's hot, and it's humid, *and* it snows. Doesn't seem right. He's never been surrounded by so many White folks in his life -- his pops would have a heart attack -- and he ain't sure what makes 'em look at him more cross-eyed: his skin, his tats, his car -- like fuck he was going to take the pickup they tried to pawn off on him -- being from California, or that he doesn't go to church on Sunday.

He's never going to eat corn on the cob ever again, once he gets the hell out of here. He never so much as sees corn again, it'll still be too soon.

Brian calls him every so often. It's not a regular pattern -- once a week, once every two weeks, if he's really busy once every month. Rome listens to him bitch about rules and regulations and his coworkers, bitches back about whatever happens to be pissing him off this week. Once he's in Nebraska, it's towns that ain't got more than five hundred people, and they're people who eat squirrels and eat rabbits and eat deer that wreck cars, goddamn Bambi bringing in too much business. The tractors, green and red, all over everywhere he looks. Church bells that never really stop ringing. Only language he hears these days is English, and Rome misses the time when he could stick his head out the door and holler for somebody to shut the fuck up, get a response back in Mexican Spanish and Puerto Rican Spanish, sometimes Cuban. His accent is for shit and he knows it, but living in Miami means you got to know the difference in dialects. How else you gonna know if somebody was talking trash or saying something you had to kick his ass for? Misses the noise of Suki yelling at some punk in Japanese, Jimmy teaching her how to swear in Cantonese in exchange for her fucking around with the paint job on his car, misses the lilt and rhythm of the Jamaican section of Miami in the moments he'd wanted some jerk chicken bad enough to listen to the never-fucking-ending reggae.

He bets nobody in Nebraska would even know what he was talking about if he mentioned the Wu-Tang Clan and misses Jimmy's drunk-ass lectures on hip-hop and rap, the way Tej always ended up throwing something at him once Jimmy got *too* artistic and then they'd start rhyming at each other over a deck of cards. Tequila on Jimmy's breath and rum on Tej's, whiskey burning warm in Rome's blood, Suki with her J-pop shit downing one girly, neon-colored drink after another and still walking steady as anything in her heels, Brian's eyes glittering and his mouth, later, wet and soft, sweet with his cheap orange vodka.

Some of them ain't too bad, though -- Jarod finds songs Rome has to admit are halfway decent and then laughs himself sick when Rome finds out they're country, and between him and some of his buddies and his sister, Rome gets himself a little extra money on the side racing. It's the one good thing he *can* say about Nebraska, those long beautiful stretches of pavement that sing under his wheels, and the repair jobs on the roads ain't so bad that Rome can't floor it and pretend, for a little while, that he doesn't have to go back.

Lying to himself like that would be easier if Brian didn't sound every damn time like he wasn't a little bit happy. Fighting the good fight, all that shit, and he might bitch about his coworkers and how much he misses racing, but Rome knows good and well part of him's glad as hell to have excuses to help people he thinks need it.

Rome doesn't say any of that. He just listens, laughs at the right places, snarls under his breath when Brian talks about the case he's building up against the drug lord fucker he'd been pulled in to catch, calls Brian cuz and homie and bro and homeboy and all the nicknames he can't use for these people he doesn't know.

Brian laughs at him, says all of them back, says Rome and Rome and Rome, and Rome listens to Brian saying his name and waits for the call that will tell him he can get his ass out of this little town that's no better than his damn ankle bracelet.

When it comes, it's quick, even though it's been a while since he's heard from Brian. Something big must have gone down, maybe something that means Verone's back in jail. He picks up, says, "Yeah?"

"Bail," Brian tells him, and hangs up.

*Finally*, Rome thinks, and gets himself gone. He takes his gun and all the cash he's got on hand, his fake ID and enough spare clothes to last a week, the CD Jarod burned him, easy-carry food, his phone.

He leaves everything else behind. All he really needs is what's under him, rumbling out a purr when Rome steps harder on the gas, and what's at the other end of his phone.

***

The problem with one quick message, and fuck Brian's cryptic never-telling-Rome-anything ass anyway, is that now he can't take his phone apart and dump it. He's just walking around with a big 'Find Me' sign in his pocket. He can trade his car in, and did, soon as he hit a big enough city, then took enough time with himself and some tools to fuck with it, but he dumps his phone and he's free and clear, with no way for Brian to contact him. Fucker. Ain't like Rome has a damn clue where he's supposed to be going, anyway, Brian didn't bother to mention that much. 'Bail' ain't so good without somewhere to *go*. He learned that when he got out of jail.

He heads southwest. He misses the heat, misses dry, baking warmth that goes straight through to his bones and lives there, curls up nice and warm in his gut, even if it gets damn cold at night. Rome ain't meant for snow. Hell, Rome ain't even meant for rain. Barstow was desert, and too much green wigs him out. It's too easy, too obvious.

Besides, life gets too entertaining, he can find somewhere to slip through to Mexico if he just goes far enough, and at least southwest he'll find people who speak some kinda Spanish. Speak Chinese and Japanese, if he heads back to California. Speak *something* that ain't Wonder-Bread English. Hell, at this point he'll take Cherokee, only he's pretty sure those are southeast.

He's thirty minutes past the northeast Colorado border when Brian calls again, loud, tinny country that Rome had assigned to mean 'Brian' just for the look he could imagine on Brian's face if he ever heard it. When Rome answers, Brian doesn't bother to say hello. "Don't know where we're going. You still have that old email account?"

"Yeah," Rome tells him, and his grip tightens on the phone, because something ain't right if Brian's running without a plan. "You planning on telling me what went down anytime soon, bro?"

"When I can, cuz. Or you could just check the news, bet it's hit by now." There's dark, wry amusement in Brian's voice, and it makes Rome frown, hissing between his teeth. "Get to a computer when you can, then call me."

"I been trying to *avoid* talking to people, man... " What the hell has Brian been getting up to?

"I know." Rome can half-catch the sound of Brian's name being called, the noise thin from distance and muffled by Brian's own voice, low and just a little tense. "I've got to go, bro."

"All right. I'm dumping this phone once I get to a computer," Rome warns, even though he's sure Brian already knows he will. Rome's heard all the bullshit from prison shrinks about impulsive behavior and problems with authority. Nowhere in there did they say he was dumb, and only an idiot would keep a phone he knew the pigs already had a trace on right about now.

"Teach Suki Japanese while you're at it, why don't you? Sheesh."

"Fuck you, cuz."

"Promises..." Brian says, his tone a low, light tease, and the phone goes dead.

It's a fast hangup, Rome thinks, laughing low in his throat and tossing his phone back on the seat next to him, but that's normal when Brian feels like fucking around, even if his voice had sounded tenser than Rome would like it.

He wonders who 'we' is.

***

Brian hangs up the cell a few moments after Dom's hiss and drops from his perch on the keel of the ship to look at Dom across the little distance between them, salt flung up in his face from the chop of the waves. "Yeah, Dom?"

"The hell?" Dom looks at the phone, the arch of his brow making it real obvious what he's thinking -- not that he really has to look for Brian to know. He hadn't wanted to have this argument right now, not with Dom still with a headache from the gas they'd used to take the bus down and a hellish temper from the months inside, with the trial and all that other stupid bullshit, but it's here, and he's not going to back down from it.

"Somebody I had to talk to," Brian tells him, easy and quiet and thinking about how to make Dom *get* it as fast as he can.

Dom's not listening, his body tight, all hard lines of angry muscle. "That's the same damn phone Letty had the number for. What, you just *want* to bring trouble down on us?"

"Hell, no. And it's going overboard right now." He suits the words to action, tossing it with a long, hard flick of his elbow and wrist, keeping his eyes on Dom's face. "Dom... he's my Vince. I *had* to call him, get him moving, and I wasn't going to call his old phone from my new one."

He already knows how to shade his voice with Dom to sound just as sincere as he wants to, and it's not hard to do this time because it's nothing but the truth -- not all the truth, no, but enough for Dom to get it. Why he can't leave Rome behind again. He doesn't need, yet, to tell Dom that Rome's not just his Vince, in a lot of ways he's his Letty, too. First partner and first real lover, and the only one who can see straight through all Brian's bullshit. Rome would kill him for the thought, but it's damned true.

He can see Dom thinking about that, watching the arc of the phone through the air and hearing what he said, and it's the shift in Dom's shoulders and wrists even more than the low words that tell him Dom's settling back down. Brian had known he would. Family's the only real chink Dom's got, and all Brian has to do is make him understand that that's what Rome is.

"Your Vince?" Curiosity thick enough to actually shade his voice, and Brian can't help but smile for it.

"Yeah, my Vince. Though I wound up with Rome in first grade, not third. And..." He hates thinking about the years after high school, even though without them he'd never have known Mia, or known Dom, and he can't think about what his life would have been like without them now that they're back in it. His voice stays mostly calm, lightly easy. "We spent a few years not talking to each other. Finally got that fixed, though."

He can see surprise, an edge of horror, under Dom's face. Knows he's thinking about it, being without Vince, having Vince not talking to him or wanting to be anywhere near him, how not having Vince there in Lompoc and not having him here now, for the past five years, must've felt like having an arm missing.

Yeah, Brian almost wants to say, *get* that, because being without Rome had felt like having his *car* missing, not just an arm or a leg or the biggest single chunk of his heart. Months of stupid fighting that had built up into that last real fight, where Brian had thought for a second Rome would hit him for real, when Rome had looked at him like everything his dad had always said about Brian was true, and now Rome believed it.

Brian's never going back to that.

He watches Dom for just another few seconds, then realizes he doesn't *have* to say it. Dom *is* getting it. He can see it all over him in the way his mouth and his shoulders tighten, his eyes going narrow, and if there's anyone that understands the lengths you're willing to go to for family, it's Dominic Toretto. He can see the way the memory slides through Dom, too -- one of these days, they may have trouble over him having Rome back with him when Dom doesn't have Vince, but that's not going to be right now. With any luck, it won't be ever.

Dom shakes his head after a couple minutes of silence, shakes it off, his shoulders loosening again. "Got to be a hell of a story in that. Doesn't seem like now's the time. Alright, Brian."

He doesn't have to play it down for Dom, tell him it was a couple of kids being stupid, or even tell him the short version of the truth like he had with Monica. He just nods. They can start planning for real now, and he'll email Rome another number, and between them all this is going to work.

***

The smile from talking to Brian stays on Rome's face for the next three hours, through getting a truck-stop shower and breakfast, through getting a cheap pre-paid phone, and through finally finding a city big enough to have a public library that will let him get to a computer without giving him a double-take and a raised eyebrow.

Brian's e-mail is waiting for him, and Rome blinks at it for a second before he rolls his eyes. The note's only a couple sentences long, and what it looks like is some punk-ass, groveling apology, except for the ten numbers scattered between the letters. He writes the numbers down on his hand, deletes the e-mail, and takes his old phone apart as soon as he's back in the car. Tosses the battery when he stops for lunch, throws the rest of it away when he stops to take a piss two hours later.

Then he calls Brian again.

This time, there's nothing but relief in Brian's voice when he answers. "Rome... " Long, low sigh of his voice. "Hey, bro."

The relief in Brian's voice, that tired sigh, makes Rome frown a little again, his mouth going tight, his eyes narrowing against the start of sunset. "You all right, man?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Just... it's been a long couple of months, cuz."

"I guessed that when I didn't hear from you. Feds turn on you again?"

"...yeah, you could say that. God, but you could say that."

Rome bites back 'I told you so.' Brian sounds too tired for it. "You wanna tell me what happened? You know how I love hearing about pigs being punks."

That gets Brian to laugh, just like Rome had meant it to. "You know I was back in Hollywood. Well... little piece of my past caught up to me."

"Yeah?" Light and curious, hearing Brian's voice coming clear over the noise of the wind rushing past, the road and the engine humming under him.

"Yeah. Letty spotted me, came to me trying to work a deal to get them cleared. ...it got her killed, bro. So he came home."

Letty... he's heard that name. That shit that went down in L.A. five years back. "He? Your mark? The one that got you out of the force the *first* time?"

"Yeah. It got... messy. And then they refused to follow through with the deal I'd worked. They were going to put him back in Lompoc."

There's *ice* in Brian's voice, straight-up pure fury, and if it was anybody else sounding that flatly cold, Rome would be just a little scared. Just a little worried for his ass. But it's Brian, and hearing him sound like that just pisses Rome off, starts rage coiling in him. Brian ain't supposed to sound that cold. Cool's one thing, Brian's got ice in his veins these days, but not cold like that. Cold like that kills, and that ain't Brian's job. "Hell with that plan, cuz." Brian's told him more than enough about Toretto for Rome to know there wasn't no way for Brian to let that stand. There's no bitterness in him any more for that knowledge -- Brian hadn't known what was going down with him. If he had, Brian would've done anything he could. They've had that fight.

"Amen to that, bro. So I jacked their plans a good one. Just a little bit hot to be me right now..."

Rome laughs, soft and wild. "Homie, you ain't kidding. How many states you think the APB's gone out to this time?"

"All of them." Brian's voice is as much a shrug as his body would show. "We're headed down for some of his crowd. You know that rum you liked so much when Tej poured it around? Not far from there."

The sugarcane flower rum? Shit, how's he gonna get to Nicaragua? Brian can't make nothing simple, not even fleeing the damn country. "Good time to be glad you speak Spanish."

"Yep. Real good time," Brian agrees, low and casual.

He doesn't even *have* a passport, sure as hell doesn't know who he'd talk to for a forged decent one. Crossing the border into Mexico probably ain't that hard. Getting to Nicaragua from Mexico is gonna be a bitch. "All right."

"You've got my number now, bro. Call me any time. We'll get this done."

Yeah. They will. Brian's plans are crazy, but they're better than Nebraska any damn day. "Man, I *got* this," a laugh bubbling in his throat.

"Good, cuz. I'm counting on it."

"... I got your back, Brian."

"I know." Lazy, easy half-purr, all Brian's relaxed, confident calm. Warm and pleased and low, nothing like casual.

Fuck, he's been away from Brian too long if just that tone in Brian's voice feels like his hand curving over the back of Rome's neck. If just Brian's voice can make him tense and shudder. "Yeah?"

"Don't you always, cuz?"

"Yeah," Rome says, easy and low. "Don't mean you always smart enough to know it, bro."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. See you soon, man."

Not soon enough. "Too soon, homie."

"Oh, shove it."

Rome laughs, loud and open, tipping his head back to let the noise out. "Yeah, and I bet you got some bright ideas for where, cuz."

"... I just might, bro." Brian's voice smoky and dark, now, a low and rumbling purr, answering the laugh with a promise.

He isn't going to groan just for that. He's *not*, but Rome's shuddering again, his hand going tight on the phone and his dick twitching under his clothes. "You the man with the plans, Brian... "

"Yeah. I know. Talk to you later, Rome."

Tease. Always such a tease. "Yeah." This time, Rome hangs up first.

***

Mia hadn't meant to eavesdrop. She hadn't even been looking for Brian, only walking, restless and a little on edge. But she'd heard him, heard the tone in his voice, and she stopped before she could hear the words. There's laughter in Brian's voice, hunger and want, with a low, dark edge to it that feels like the stroke of Brian's hand down her spine. She doesn't want to hear what he's saying, but she sure as hell wants to know who he's talking to. She can't quite see him, but she hears him really laugh suddenly, loud and surprised and so open she almost expects there to be a sign. Brian Is Happy. Big pointy neon chevrons arrowing towards Brian Is Amused.

She hears him move, walking towards her and the door behind her, and there's a part of her that wants to slip away and pretend she never heard him laughing like that. Mia's outgrown that girl. She steps out, sees him, and the smile she spots in the seconds before it changes, broadens and loses all its sharp, could fit Letty's best porn. Hot and hungry and edged, and she isn't sure if the affection she can see in his face now is for her or for whoever'd put all that *want* in his face.

She's kind of curious what it's doing there. She knows she had nothing to do with it, and it isn't as though *Dom* is over here.

"Mia." His voice's nothing but easy, and his smile goes a little wider as he takes the last few steps between them, hand reaching out to her. "Something up?"

She shakes her head no, half-cocks one hip. She isn't sure if she wishes he'd sound guilty or is glad that he sounds so easy-calm. "I was just restless. Good phone call?" she adds, because there's only so accepting she can be. She could at least understand if Brian sounded that hungry for Dom -- Dom steals everyone, sooner or later, and he stole Brian from her years ago. She's still not sure if they know that.

It occurs to her for the first time that she is, maybe, getting a little tired of this variant on that game.

"Rome. Pretty much my Vince... except I got him in about first grade, not third."

Dom's never in his life sounded like *that* talking to Vince. "God help you." She has to resist the urge to cross herself for taking the Lord's name in vain, but it's not like she doesn't think Brian having somebody like Vince means the Lord *ought* to keep an eye out. Brian's crazy enough on his own.

"...yeah, pretty much," Brian shrugs again, drops his chin just a little like he does when he's agreeing more than he really ought to, or doesn't want to talk about it. "We... had a seriously hellish fight about the time I graduated high school. Didn't really talk again until I had a way to get him out of what he'd gotten into without me."

"Oh, Brian... " Her voice is soft, softer than his even tone had been, and she doesn't need to know the kid he'd been to know how much that had to have hurt. Doesn't even want to think about how Dom would've been after a fight bad enough that Vince wouldn't have talked to him. Mia thinks that might have killed him. "I'm sorry."

"...so was I. Especially since he turned out to be *right*... I'm no cop, never was, no matter what Dad wanted."

One eyebrow goes up, and she nods, crosses her arms over her chest. "That was what your fight was about?" She wonders where 'Rome' is now, if Brian was calling him to, what, bring him down here with them. She isn't surprised that Dom isn't fighting with Brian over this phone call. Knows if Dom thought he had a chance of being able to get to Vince, he'd do it. She'd help.

Neither one of them's going to begrudge Brian a chance to get his best friend back.

"Yeah... we'd been arguing on and off all senior year about what we were going to do -- and then Dad made it damn plain that one way or another I was going to the Academy. Rome... I don't think I'd ever seen him that pissed at me. Then again, he did hate my dad about as much as I hated his."

She almost points out that it's traditional to hate the in-laws. But if Brian doesn't know what had been on his face, in his voice, she's not going to be the one that mentions it. There's only so much of explaining to Brian what he wants that she can do. "Why'd you hate his?"

"He couldn't much stand having his son running second to a White boy, and I didn't like how he treated Rome because of it."

"Snowman," she mocks, hearing the old anger running under Brian's voice, and reaches forward to take his hand. The moments Brian's loyalty shows strong always do this to her. She blames growing up with Dom and Vince and Letty, and the way their triangle always expanded to her because she's a Toretto, too. Mia knows family.

Brian locks his fingers with hers, shifting to get his other hand along the small of her back, a long, easy slide of his hand. "Yeah... especially anywhere near Rome. He's darker than Edwin... and mouthier."

"And you're *sure* you're glad to be talking to him again?" Mia teases, tilting her head to look up at him. It's almost easy to forget how he'd sounded, how he'd looked, in the way he's smiling at her.

"Yeah, I am -- I told you the really short version of the truth when I told you that I let Dom go because I respected him more than I did myself. The other half of it was that I'd lost one family because I chose wrong. I couldn't do it again. Not to Dom, not to you."

That explains a lot, actually. Mia's so tired of learning new things about Brian.

His voice is earnest, sincere, and his eyes are openly frank. Of course, he'd looked like that every time he'd lied to her, but Mia believes him. "So when's he going to be here?"

"I told him where we were headed. It might take him a while to get to us, but it shouldn't be that long, either. He's only got to get across a couple of borders, after all."

And he doesn't have the benefit of Dom's contacts. Mia had been ruthless, used every one of them she could get her hands on to get Dom free, and she doesn't regret any of it. She never will. Nothing it could cost her, morality and country and Brian, could be worth her brother. L.A. hadn't been home. Dom is home. "So," she says, tilting her head, and almost asks, 'What did he say to make you sound like that?'

Mia doesn't think she wants the truth, and she knows she can't hear Brian lie to her this time. Sometimes she isn't sure if she knows who she is anymore, and Brian lying would just make her the girl she'd been the first time they met. She outgrew that child a long time ago, even if sometimes she isn't sure Dom gets that, or that Brian does. "Why did he hate *your* father?"

"Because Dad looked at him and saw a young Black punk with too much attitude that was getting in the way of me living up to what he wanted for me?" It's the only thing Brian's ever been able to figure out.

"What about what *you* wanted for you?"

"...That wasn't really in dad's way of looking at things, I guess."

She can't do anything about that reply but stare at him, a little shocked and a little pitying. Mia's always known that her parents wanted what would make her happy, that Dom would do anything to get her the life he thought she deserved. She's known for years that if she ever told Dom she didn't want to be a doctor, that she wanted to be like him, like Letty, he'd spend a week doing nothing but trying to talk her out of it, and then once he knew he couldn't, he'd teach her everything he knew.

If she could *find* him.

She could kill him for staying away so long, for leaving her alone with a garage she didn't know how to use like it deserved and a cafe where the customers kept looking over her shoulder for everyone who ought to be there. Idiot. Like she could be happy anywhere her brother wasn't.

"...If I'd really *hated* the idea, he might've listened, but the more he pushed and the more Rome yelled at me about why the fuck was I gonna 'go and be just like him' -- the more I wanted to prove that I could be a cop and still be *me*, be *different*, not be like every cop that would give him shit because he was him."

She laughs, just a little, and squeezes his hand. "You wanted to prove good cops existed? To a *racer*?"

"...yeah, go ahead, call me an idiot. Rome sure as hell did."

"I think it's cute." Stupid, but sweet and idealistic. But Mia's outgrown lost causes, and it looks like Brian has, too.

That gets her a smile, replacing the traces of the young, hurt look still on his face. She likes the smile better. "Thanks, Mia. It was dumb, but everyone's a stupid kid once?"

"You think you're not a stupid kid now?"

"Not the same ways, at least..."

That much she has to grant. She still isn't sure whether or not she wants to know what his Rome had been saying to make Brian sound like that. She definitely hadn't needed to know that whether Brian Spilner was or not, Brian O'Conner is definitely bi.

And doesn't *that* give a whole new twist to Dom stealing him from her years ago...

Brian shifts, his hand sliding up her back, dipping his head to kiss her. Light, easy brush of his lips as he holds her a little closer.

Brian's always been a good kisser, and it would be easy to deepen it while she arched into the stroke of his hand up her back. But Mia has some thinking to do, and Brian always distracts her. Her returning kiss is just as light, an easy, affectionate touch of her mouth to Brian's.

"Love you, Mia," he says against her mouth, before he brushes another kiss over her lips, then takes the hint she hasn't been subtle about giving him and steps back just a little.

"I know," she says, and smiles, instead of saying, 'He still owns you.' "Love you."

It's true, even through everything else. Brian loves her. She loves him. It's just that she's learned over the past few years that love doesn't fix problems.

He smiles brighter for it, and lets her go.

Now she definitely needs to take a walk. And think. Misses Letty with a rush that makes her have to bite her lip to keep the wince back when she turns away from Brian -- Letty would make fun of her for this, but Letty would *listen*. Beer and girl talk and Letty rolling her eyes, her hands oddly gentle in Mia's hair when she stroked. Letty had been the only part of her life that Mia had managed to keep, even if she'd only had Letty in fragments.

Mia understands, comprehends, and accepts that she will never have even those fragments again. That doesn't mean she has stopped grieving, any more than it means Dom has.

***

When Rome hits Arizona, he pulls over off the road and wanders for a little while, until all he can hear is the buzz of insects and the sun beating down. Drapes a blanket from the car over a too-hot rock and eats, slow and lazy, watching mountains in the distance. Bakes the last lingering humid of Nebraska right out of his bones over chicken enchiladas and fry-bread from the little hole in the wall he stopped at.

He thinks for a real long minute about staying. About finding somewhere around here that he could stay. He likes desert horizons -- big and wide and open. He can see everything. Miami had been off the *hook*, but when he'd looked up at the sky it had been stifling. All those buildings, trees, that shit, right up close to him. He'd felt caught.

But the real desert's too quiet for him, and anyway if he doesn't catch up to Brian God only knows what the little punk's gonna get his ass into, especially running around with Toretto again. All the shit that means, and how stupid Brian gets with people he. Cares about. Rome needs to keep him out of trouble.

He wipes the sweat off his face and gets back in the car. Starts driving again, heading for Mexico, heading for Nicaragua buried in the middle of Central fucking America, and his Spanish ain't near good enough to pull this off but fuck it, he'll learn. If Brian could manage it, so will he.

***

The problem, Mia decides later, is that she's outgrown being second-best.

These days, she knows how good a liar Brian is, but she believes he hadn't meant to lie to her in Cha Cha Cha. It's not that he'd planned to end up obsessed with her brother, any more than anyone else ever had. Dom's just... Dom.

But if he told her now that being here was about her, that Dom was just a bonus, he'd be lying, and she's sure that he'd know it.

She could work on the issues she and Brian still have. She could deal with the fact that her brother owns her lover. But she isn't the girl she'd been, and she's not going to put up with both of them at once. Especially not with Brian's Rome on his way -- she's not a homewrecker, after all.

Mia hides her laugh, sharp and hurting, behind her hand, and she goes to talk to Brian.

She doesn't want to deal with Dom yet. Just in case she's wrong. But they aren't glued to each other, and all she really has to do is go to Brian's room and wait.

She'd planned out this talk. She'd made note cards of Brian's probable responses, even.

Then she actually sees him, and Mia decides, fuck it, racers never work with *plans*, and it's not as though doctors can work from a textbook every time, either. "I still don't date my brother's friends."

It's going to be easier to focus on Dom, on this Rome guy, than all the other reasons she's doing this. Brian could charm her out of the rest of it, could persuade her to change her mind and think that doing it, deciding to ignore all the ways they don't have a clue who the other one is these days, was all her own idea. But he won't ever pretend Dom doesn't own him, not to her, and he can't wriggle his sneaky 'what I do best in the world is lie' way out of that.

Better to cut this off clean than risk having it go septic. They don't have the resources to treat that properly any more; if Mia has to do triage, she'll pick Dom every time.

So will Brian. They've got that in common, now. Maybe they always have.

She'd tugged the curtain away from the window before he came in, and the light catches the clear, glassy blue of his eyes, gleaming back at her. His face is smoothly controlled and blank, that pretty mouth she's never quite gotten over pressed tight shut over something he won't say. She wonders if he'd been expecting this and isn't sure if she's glad or not that she can see what she's saying hurting him.

Mia tilts her head sideways, her hair falling over her t-shirt, her voice gone dry. "And I wouldn't pay money to watch the two of you pound on each other anymore. I had enough of that." She can still hear Dom's snarl, Brian's furious, grieving answer and apology.

The mask of his face cracks a little, Brian's lips curving in a jagged ghost of a smile. "I wouldn't want to." She can almost hear the 'any more'.

She hadn't needed confirmation. It still hurts a little, remembering the way he'd smiled at her in Cha Cha Cha, and how she'd known then that he wouldn't be hers forever. No one stayed hers, not with Dom -- no one had ever even really tried; and she can't ever hate her brother but sometimes she'd resented -- resents -- the hell out of him.

She'd still wished, just a bit, that Brian could be just hers for a little while longer.

She knows she'll always love him, and need him -- he's family -- but she doesn't think she wants him any more. There's too much in the way. That doesn't mean this is easy. Except in the ways it is.

"I already knew that," she says instead, keeping her voice soft.

Brian's mouth tightens up again, just a little... and then he's smiling, smile like she hasn't seen in years, and shaking his head a little. "Mia... I think you knew first."

'I knew when the two of you looked at each other,' Mia very nearly says, and smiles back instead, showing her teeth. "I am the smart one, Brian."

"No doubt about that," Brian agrees, still smiling at her. "You know your brother's gonna want to kill me over this, right?"

"Dom is not going to kill you."

"You sure about that?" His voice is teasing as he asks, though, light and almost playful, and he's smiling.

Mia lets her smile widen, edging on smug, and tosses her hair. "If any Toretto was going to kill you, it would be me. Dom gave up his chance. And then who'll help me with the dishes?"

"Still not Dom, huh? With the way he eats, you'd think he would..."

She snorts, shaking her head. "Dom can cook. He doesn't clean."

"I *remember* how clean that garage was," Brian says, shaking his head. "Dom can cook -- more than just grill?"

"That's the *garage*. That's practically church for him -- nobody knows that better than you." And Letty. Had known. One day, that tense might not hurt to think. Letty deserves to be remembered with more than pain. "And yeah, he can cook. Mean pot of pasta, not that he's proven that for a while. If I had a test, Dom wasn't going to ask me to feed everyone when I needed to study." He'd had a lot of rules, and most of them involved her. Nobody bothered Mia when she was studying. Nobody at his house for a party used anything harder than alcohol or pot, and only Jesse was -- had been. That thought hasn't stopped hurting yet. -- allowed to get away with weed without even a glare.

"Yeah, it is. Huh. Yeah, I can see that." Brian shakes his head, and Mia can almost see him trying to picture Dom working in the kitchen for a minute. There's another shake, a moment later, one she can't read quite as well.

Mia smiles at him, slips off his bed to take a step closer. He looks calm, but she'll always know, now, that what Brian does best in the world is lie. Whether or not he's lying to *her* is the question. "We're all right, Brian?"

It takes Brian a second to answer, but he nods. "Yeah. Yeah, Mia... I think we are. Only way we wouldn't be is if you were going to shove me off the boat," he cocks his head, question in the curve of his lips.

"Nobody is going to shove you off the boat. Unless they want to do *all* the dishes. For the next year."

Brian throws his head back, laughing, smiling at her. He looks all right, for the moment, and she's pretty sure that he's feeling all right. "Thanks, Mia."

She grins at him, resting a hand on the curve of her hip, reaching out with her other hand to catch his shirt with a gentle tug. "Any time, Brian."

He dips his head, kissing her forehead, and hugs her for a moment before he lets go.

Mia knows she's going to be better off with them settled, cauterized. So will Brian. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when he lets go, and she grabs his hand to squeeze once, hard, before she leaves his room for hers. She needs a little while before she talks to Dom.

***

"I'm not dating Brian," she tells Dom later, stretching out her shoulders, lifting her hair off her neck when a breeze moves over the water, tilting her head into the ghost of cool air on her skin. Mia's used to L.A., smog and heat, and this isn't nearly as bad as it could be. The endless ocean noise is soothing, even though it isn't the right kind of noise. Mia misses music, misses the noise of Echo Park and purring engines, the quick lilt of Cuban and Dominican and Japanese and languages she hadn't picked up well enough to recognize at all.

Dom lifts his head, looking at her over one shoulder. "Mia, don't tell me I gotta break his neck just when the buster's being useful."

Mia laughs, soft and low in her throat. There's an edge of too-jagged sound to it, she thinks critically, but all surgery hurts with no anesthetic, no matter how necessary or how clean. She's been hurting when she thinks of Brian for a long time. She isn't sure how she'll feel when she doesn't. "It was my idea, Dom. Don't worry," she says lightly, leaning in to spread her hand between his shoulder blades, somewhere between T1 and T4, checking the level of tension in his muscles. Not as bad as it could be. Good. She'll need to pick up massage training eventually. Dom's always carried too much tension, and Letty isn't here now to draw it out of him.

Or out of her. Mia doesn't let her hand curl into a fist, keeping her fingers light on Dom's back, and finishes her sentence with all the casual honesty she has. "He didn't break my heart."

"No? Then what's going on, Mia?" Dom asks, turning a little more to look at her.

"... I don't think Brian and I really know who we are, Dom. Not unless we're both behind the wheel of a car. And I'm not you, or him -- I won't live my life just when I'm racing."

Dom turns a little more, looking at her from the better angle, and she can see him wanting to protest that. Sees him pull it back, too.

"I think we'll be happier being friends," Mia adds, and moves to stand next to him, leaning on the rail. "He didn't seem to disagree."

"Yeah? You sure?" Dom's hand spreads over her back, above the rail.

Mia tips her head at him, a wry smirk spreading over her face. "You're welcome to ask him yourself, Dom."

"That look's never a good one, Mia... What're you thinking?"

She wonders whether or not Dom knows he stole Brian from her years ago. She wonders when in these five years she stopped really wanting him. "I'm remembering a joke I heard once."

Dom just tips his head to the side, question in his eyes.

Mia's never going to tell Dom exactly why dinner at Cha Cha Cha had been one hell of a joke. She smiles instead, shrugs a little. "I didn't say it was a *funny* joke. I'm okay, Dom."

Dom's arm wraps around her tightly, pulling her in against him. "Long as you're okay, little sister."

She hadn't known she was tense until Dom had tugged her in, had her relaxing in his grip, the hold that's meant 'safe' as long as she can remember. "I'm a survivor, Dom," she says, and turns her face in against his hard shoulder. "I'm always okay."

"You always have been... even though it's not what I wanted for you. ...Good thing for all of us you are, though, huh?"

She has to laugh. "Saved your ass."

"Yeah, you sure did."

"You're my brother, Dom. You look after me, I look after you." She lifts her head, looks him in the eye. "Family sticks together." And it doesn't leave. Not again. Mia's tired of being left behind.

Dom nods, his eyes solemn, and he's never been able to lie to her for anything. He means it. "Yeah. We do." His mouth curves in a teasing, playful smile a second later. "So, you're still okay with keeping him around?"

Mia laughs, smiling back at him. "He asked that, too. I pointed out that if I kicked him off the boat, nobody would help me clean. Besides... he's still pretty." It's true, and it's not like she has anything *else* to look at on this boat, and she can't quite get the way Brian had sounded with his friend out of her head. It's not that she wants Dom and Brian fucking -- she really, really wishes she hadn't had that thought -- but there's a piece of her that's curious whether or not Dom will agree.

Dom shakes his head, looks at her with a little quirk of his mouth -- not really a smile, but not a frown, either -- and shrugs. "He's something, that's for sure. *What*, on the other hand..." The hand not holding her in spreads a little, what would look like a lazy kind of motion if she didn't know her brother so well.

"Besides crazy, you mean?"

"Not like I've got room to talk there, Mia."

"I didn't," she points out, her smile sharpening, "Say you weren't, Dom."

"Guess that's true," he nods, looking at her smile with a tip of his head and a set of his face he used to save for something in an engine he hadn't quite figured out yet before he lets go of her, ruffling her hair a little, same touch he's used since they were little.

What he's trying to figure out now... she isn't all the way sure. She'll find out, sooner or later. When things get messy, the way she's almost sure they will. They'll deal with complications when the engine starts burning, and if Brian and her brother don't know just how complicated this rig will get, then there's no need to hit the NOS too soon.

***

Dom sits on top of one of the stacks of cargo containers, bottle of Corona -- still his favorite brand -- in his hand, watching the sun go down again and trying to decide what he thought about all of this. He'd been surprised, at first, to find out that Brian had someone as close to him as Vince had always been to him. He still doesn't know why it'd surprised him, once he had a little while to think about it. Brian's got a pull to him like nothing else Dom's ever known. All of his life he's been the one that pulls people in, center of attention and focus even when he doesn't really want to be -- but Brian's different. Brian pulls on him. He has since he was just coming by the lunch counter and giving him that lazy, steady appraisal while he flirted with Mia.

Brian never had seemed to have the sense to be wary of him -- hell, he'd been the kind of in his face brass-balled that no one else had pulled with him in years that didn't outright want a fight. Always that stubborn, steady refusal to back down, to give any more ground than he had to... and Dom knew full well he'd never pushed half as hard on Brian as he would have anyone else. Yeah, he'd tried to chase him off that day outside the garage, but when he'd seen the blond leaning on his car, bullshitting with Edwin, bullshitting with him -- he still hates to admit it, but he'd been impressed. Everything after that, every single minute of Brian sliding deeper and deeper into his life... of him *bringing* Brian into his life... had come from that steady, fearless composure. He'd never seen anything quite like that -- and he's never stopped wanting it.

There were ways Han had had it, that same bone-deep cool -- Dom would have denied once that that had anything to do with why he'd taken Han into his crew, but he knows better now -- but even Han had never stood up to him the way Brian did. Brian pushes like he breathes, even when he ought to know he's outmatched -- Brian pushes like Letty always did.

The thought stops his bottle three inches from his lips, his breath stutters for a second... and then he knows it's true.

Toretto, you're a damned idiot, he tells himself, looking out at the fast-setting sun narrow-eyed. Yeah, of course he'd had that moment of 'not Brian, too', seeing Fenix drawn down on Brian -- but Brian was Mia's, Brian was family...

That's never been all it is. Not for him, and he's been being blind.

And he doesn't think that's all it is with Brian, either. Brian chose him. Five years ago, six months ago, last week... Brian keeps choosing him.

Now the question is... what the hell does he do about the fact that he's at least half in love with his sister's ex -- of about four hours?

No matter what he does, unless he just ignores it, Mia's going to kill him. And Dom can't ignore this. Brian, after everything, deserves a hell of a lot better from him than for him to pull the kind of bullshit it would take for him not to be honest about it.

Speak of the devil... Dom turns at the sound of metal being climbed over, just in time to see Brian's head come up over the edge of the container. "You'd better have your own beer, Bri."

"Two," Brian answers, and finishes climbing up. "Stuck one in my pocket and hoped I didn't slip."

Dom looks him up and down, lazy, and waits for him to come on over. "Since I didn't hear you yelling, guess you must have managed it. But then, you were a pretty good second-story artist a couple years ago..."

"Lots of reasons I got yanked back in," Brian tells him with a sharp half-grin, sitting just out of Dom's easy range. "That I'm willing to use being good at that is one of them."

He's never forgotten how that smile looks, even with the little bit of age on Brian's face now. Sharp and bright and almost hungry, even while it's lazily pleased. "Yeah? You never did tell me that story. I heard all about the APB, eventually, but not a lot afterwards -- and then there you were, Mr. FB fucking I..."

"Some stuff got complicated. I made some deals." Brian shrugs, an easy, casual motion, hard-edged gleam in his eyes. "Made a trade for Rome."

He can understand that. If he could have, he'd have done just about anything to get Vince out again. He hadn't had anything he was willing to trade -- looked like Brian had. "I think things would've been worse, if you hadn't."

"... I'm sorry about Letty, Dom." Brian looks away, his grip on his unopened beer tightening, shoulders going tense.

Letty. Oh, what she'd have to say about what he's been thinking. Of course, part of it would probably be for him to not be a damn idiot again. He's not planning on it. And it's all over Brian just how real those words are. "I know, Bri. You wouldn't have sent her into a death trap -- your boss would've, sure. Not you."

It looks like the right thing to say. Brian looks back at him, smiles a little, his mouth curving up and his shoulders easing on down. It's a nice minute, that tension coming out of him, before he tightens up just a little. "I know Mia told you... "

"Yeah," Dom nods, waiting a minute longer. The universe has got it in for him, he swears. "Mia told me."

He closes his eyes for a second, listens to the growl of the engine and the lap of the waves, tastes the salt and oil tang of the spray kicked up by it, and knows he's not ready for this conversation. He's never been ready for what Brian does to his life or his brain.

When he opens them again, Brian's smile is calm, amused, but either Dom's gotten better at reading him or Brian isn't bothering to lie these days. He can see the edge under it. "I'm not sure if I should be waiting to get my neck broken or get thrown off the boat."

"She said you didn't break her heart, Bri. Mia's... she's grown up a lot. If she thinks you two're better off this way -- I'm not gonna argue with her." He watches Brian, watches that edge... Bri can be such a buster, sometimes. They've had those fights, already. There's too much between them for his sister's decision to snap it. "Seems like you were smart enough not to, too."

"Like she said, man... she's the smart one. I know better than to argue with her."

Dom snorts, smiling a little, looking over at him. "Yeah. She is. 'Course... she's been the smartest one around about you and me for a while, huh?"

Brian blinks, his mouth parting for a second before it smooths back up into another smile. This one doesn't reach his eyes. "She told me before that you were like gravity. I didn't believe her."

"...she's been using that one for years," Dom nods, and that he can read Brian that easy, knows that behind that smile and the easy words is Brian being wary, uncertain of what Dom means, and trying to keep himself out of a trap...

Brian's family, and he would rather be back in that goddamned cell than ever trap anyone else he loves. It's not really Brian's fault that he doesn't realize that yet, Dom's got to admit. There's a lot of nasty water under their bridges, and one or two of them got blown to hell, besides. "Just not what I was talking about, Mister Arizona."

Brian's smile softens a little, warms up his eyes, a quick flash of real humor before that edge of wary comes back. "Yeah?"

"Don't bullshit me, Brian. I'm not gaming you."

"I don't think you would, Dom," Brian answers, and the smile slides off, the fake slipping away. "I just want to be sure I know what you *are* doing, because I wasn't expecting this."

"...welcome to my life, Bri. I hardly ever know what to expect, with you."

"I'm not *that* crazy."

"Yeah, you are. Okay, I do know *one* thing to expect. You're in a race with me, you're going to lose."

Brian grins, bright and fast, a darting flash of headlights in the dark. "Sure you didn't knock your head climbing up?"

"Two and oh, O'Connor, and I hit the tracks first if we're counting that. So three, actually." This is nothing but easy, this is as close to Brian the way he always was as Dom's had yet, and it washes a trace of heat through his veins.

Brian's smile just widens, leaning in closer, his eyes gleaming. "I'll give you the first one, and the tracks, but you know I'd have won the last one if you hadn't cheated."

"Open streets, open rules, Bri..." he shrugs a shoulder, letting his laugh come up in his voice. "Not my fault you didn't learn to watch your sides... especially when you know I use that when I need to." He doesn't have to say 'Lance' for both of them to know exactly what he means. "I needed to win that."

"Yeah. You did. I still would've kicked your ass."

"Keep dreaming, Bri. Just keep dreaming." He shakes his head, lazy, and realizes they took an exit a couple of minutes ago that he hadn't meant them to. It's easy to hide in this kind of banter, the kind of back and forth between friends or casual rivals that wouldn't be out of place on any block or any track. Too easy, in some ways... and just as easy as it ought to be. "You are that crazy."

"I just do what I have to. ... And what I enjoy."

"Not a bad way to live," Dom has to nod, roll his shoulders in a half-shrug. "It was working for me, 'til... yeah." Missing Letty isn't ever far away, and this conversation, weird as it is, isn't helping with that. Except in the ways that Brian's grief and his presence somehow slot into place like missing wires, making Dom's ability to deal with it run without coughing so much smoke. "As for what I'm doing? Think I'm trying honesty on again. Seeing what's here..." he tips the bottle in a slight arc between him and Brian, "when Mia's decided she's not going to be in the middle of it any more."

He gets a few seconds worth of deep, *deep* amusement out of watching the muscles at the edge of Brian's jaw flex and tighten to keep his mouth shut, out of the way Brian's -- Brian O'Conner, who can lie to *anyone* and have them believe it for long enough -- eyes flare, and drop, and the way he brings the bottle to his lips to have an excuse to swallow. His eyes break away, look out over the ocean, and Dom's learned patience over the last couple of years. He can wait.

When Brian finally does look back at him, the flare's still there, and Brian's doing one shitty job of hiding it. "Even though Mia knew first, I don't think that's why she broke up with me."

"Nah. Might have been part of it, but she was right about why she said she broke things off, too. You do know each other better when you're behind separate wheels."

One eyebrow arches up. "That the reason she told you?"

"Part of it, yeah."

"Huh." Brian shrugs, finally opening one bottle of his beer, taking a long swallow. "Guess she had even more reasons than I thought."

"What'd you think her reasons were?" Dom's curious, now, about what Mia told Brian as opposed to what she'd told him.

"She told me once she didn't date her brother's friends. Apparently I count, these days."

Dom tips his head, thinking that over, feeling the slow stretch of his smile as the words that would bring this back down to something easy for them both to deal with form in the back of his mouth. He's already hauled himself back from taking that dodge out once already. Changes the way the words are going to fall, and lets them come out, his voice low and almost rough. "Yeah... I can see why she might think that, these days."

He can watch Brian's brain stuttering, his eyes widening a little before he makes his brain turn over, catch, and then his mouth curves, a lazy, warmly easy grin edged with heat. "We're not friends?"

"Did I say that, Bri?" They're not friends -- Brian's deeper than that. He's team, he's family, and... then there's the rest of this.

"Not in so many words... "

Brian's still avoiding, dodging what he's really talking about, and Dom has to wonder what those years in the FBI did to Brian's head that even when he's being this open, Bri's still dancing with the issue. Too used to living with a live mic or a tracer? Or just that used to protecting himself that he can't step out of it?

"Hey," Brian says softly, and tilts his head, his beer dangling loosely. "You want to finish this conversation somewhere else?"

*There*. That's better, that's the Brian he knew in LA the first time. "Sure, Bri. ...Lead the way."

Quick glitter-flash of that smile, bright and sharp and confident, before Brian moves, heading back down the stacks and to his room. He doesn't spill his mostly-full beer, Dom notes, and doesn't move to finish it, either.

Brian's space -- at least, as much as any space on this cramped tub that Mia traded so many favors to get them on can be -- and even though there's almost nothing in it, it's still an 'I want you here' that Dom can read loud and clear. He lets the door close behind him, leaning back on the jamb, and arches one brow a little. He gets Brian wanting privacy for however the rest of this is going to go -- starting that kind of a conversation out in the full view of God and the ship's crew was about half insane. So maybe he's about as crazy as Brian is... it's not like that's news. He's still curious about just what's going on behind those suddenly sharp, confident eyes.

"I'm not planning on lying to you again," Brian tells him, leaning back on his bed, calm everywhere but for the determined look in his eyes.

You lie to everybody, Brian, Dom thinks. Realization hits hard on the bumper of that thought about just what those words coming out of Brian's mouth -- and the truth he can *see* under there -- mean, and he doesn't intend the way that Bri's name comes out of his mouth when it hits. "Brian..."

He hadn't meant that long stretch of Brian's name, hadn't really planned on having that much heat in his voice, and he sure as hell hadn't planned on sounding anything like that almost-needy, but the way it makes Brian's eyes widen and flare, tongue slipping out to stroke over his lower lip, is good enough that Dom can tell himself he'd meant to.

Brian's still beautiful, sharp-edged and all the lazy confidence he's still got even when he's *on* like that, motor humming under his skin with surprise and heat, and Dom pushes off the door with a twist of his spine and his hip -- but it's Brian that comes the rest of the way.

Soft, soft mouth on his, his lips slick and tasting bitter-bright from the last swallow of beer Brian had had. He'd never really kissed Han, the couple of times it'd been Han that cooled him down off a job -- wasn't really anything either of them needed from each other -- but he knows this. He half-hears his own words to Giselle with a smile that can't touch his lips because they're busy against Brian's -- fine body, regardless of the make -- even if it's strange to have to tilt his head up a little to make that seal solid, he knows this... and Brian knows exactly what he's doing, too. Brian tastes like the beer, but he *feels* like an answer to what Dom's been chasing since he was such a damn fool, and Mia's going to kill them both. But for right now, with Brian's hands wrapping around the back of his hip and the base of his skull and all of Brian's hard muscle under his hands, against his wrists and flexors and biceps and tight in against his chest... that doesn't matter enough to stop.

***

It takes a while for Brian to come back enough to think. His body feels like it's still humming, low steady throb of an engine on idle, and muscles he hasn't used like that in a while are adding a deeper, steady back-beat of just a little more strain than they'd been expecting. His lungs and his heart are still winding down, and every inch of his skin that's pressed sweat-slick to Dom's body is telling the rest of him that this is exactly where he's wanted to be since he laid eyes on Dom again. Dom's heart's settled back down into a slow, steady pulse already, he can feel that against the inside of his wrist where his arm's wrapped under Dom's back, and the only thing he can taste, or smell, is Dom. Sweat and skin and *sex*, and Dom's broad, strong fingers wrapped around his hip move, just a little -- maybe at the slower breath he just took.

He's got no idea how long they've been at this, though with how dark it is outside the porthole it's been at least a little while, and he doesn't really care.

He pushes up a little on the elbow of the arm he's got wrapped under Dom's body, enough to look at his eyes... and there's nothing but lazy, easy pleasure in them. There'd been a long stretch of time when he'd thought Dom was straight -- he's never had reason to be glad about being *wrong* about Dominic Toretto. He is now. Brian smiles, knows it's half-sharp half-lazy by the way it feels against his cheeks, and shrugs his free shoulder a little at the curiosity coming up in Dom's expression. "You surprised the hell out of me, Dom -- and I am not complaining."

Dom drapes back against the bed a little more, an easy sprawl of his broad shoulders, spread of his free hand and shift of most of his body, and Brian wants to lick the smile off of his mouth. He lets him talk anyway. For the moment, he wants to know what Dom's got to say. "If you were, Bri..."

Brian can't help but laugh -- low in his chest and his throat, his head dropping until it's against Dom's shoulder at Dom's perfect, casual arrogance that's as much a part of him as a car is. "Yeah, yeah, *point*..."

His breath doesn't shake at the slide of Dom's calluses all the way up the length of his back, running through his hair, but Brian knows he's pressing back into the touch, taking that extra contact, letting his spine bow for it. Dom's hand is as steady on him as it is on a wheel or a gun, and he lets his teeth settle against the point of Dom's shoulder.

There's a low, lazy purr of Dom's voice almost against his ear a moment later. "Surprised you, huh?"

"Yeah. I -- wasn't expecting this."

"I don't lie to my family, Arizona."

Dom isn't, always, that steady -- but it's hard to remember that when he sounds like he does now. Calmly, certainly determined about the way the world works and is going to keep working, and with that name hanging in the air Brian knows he's home. "No, Dom... no, you don't."

That's just another way they're alike.

Oh, fuck. Not even a muscle twitches as realization crashes down over him, and for the first time in a very, very long time Brian regrets just how much control he has. He can't fake a shift of his body well enough to fool Dom, wouldn't anyway -- not now, not ever again, is he going to lie to Dominic Toretto unless it's to save Dom's life -- and after that first flash passes he's still lazy against Dom's body.

Lazy, and easy, just him and Dom and the ways that Dom just reached out and put two entirely different claims on him in the space of three words. He's going to tell Dom more about Rome, about the only *other* man in his life he never lies to and the rest of what Rome means and the ways that Rome may react really, really badly to this once they all get to the same place... he doesn't want to right now. It's -- Suki'd kill him for thinking this, but -- it's so damn girly, he ought to be over crap like this, but he can't bring any other names into this yet.

Mia's going to be bad enough. And he doesn't have time to come up with a plan -- Mia's right *here*. He doesn't even have time for the marks he and Dom put on each other to fade. That does make him twitch, and Dom's hand spreads wide over the muscles in his back that jumped. "Bri?"

"...Mia." Yeah, that had lasted about four seconds, but at least Dom knows this side of things real well already. Or at least he ought to, he's lived with Mia all his life.

Dom sighs, and Brian feels his entire body shift with the way Dom's chest moves under him. "Yeah. I know."

That's not going to be anything like fun. He leans into Dom's body again, letting go of it for another little while.

***

Mia doesn't need Brian to tell her, or Dom, even though she can see both of them heading her way. She's not sure what exactly gives away just what they'd been doing -- it's not like she can *see* any of the marks she knows Brian likes to leave, and she just doesn't need to know if Dom likes to leave marks on his men like he'd left on Letty.

She doesn't want to have this fight. There's no fight to *have*. It's not like she didn't give up her claim, it's not like this is all or even most of *why* she did, and it isn't like she'll change her mind now that she knows for sure that yeah, Dom sure as hell stole Brian a long time ago.

She knows Brian never thought of her as second-best, or the Toretto he could have. Brian loved her, and he still does.

But damn -- she thinks it in Letty's voice, and that stings and eases the ache -- he got over her fast.

***

They're off the boat and into a little place that has enough room for the three of them -- even if it's never heard of air conditioning and the floors aren't much better than hard-packed dirt. It's still somewhere that they don't have to worry about anybody but each other hearing them -- before Dom knows good and well that Brian's trying to figuring out how to talk to him about something, he can see it in the way Bri can't quite settle in on the bed next to him. "Bri. What?"

"Thinking," Brian answers, and it was slow to come out. Too slow. Brian had been thinking about his answer, too, and he'd been obvious about making sure Dom knew.

Brian doesn't lie to his family, either. Not this time around.

"You're thinking? And I can't smell smoke?"

Brian snickers, punches his shoulder. "Sound like Rome."

"Yeah?" Alright, so it's the partner on his way down that's got Brian twisted up a little.

"Yeah. 'Course, he wouldn't have stopped at one comment."

"Well, I might not've either, if you hadn't said I sounded like him." Dom shrugs a little, runs his hand over the shorter, darker mess of Brian's hair, petting and just... easy, for the moment. Whatever's got Brian riled, he's only going to talk about it in his own damn time. The best thing he can do, right now, is keep things easy between the two of them.

That's more a laugh than a snicker, soft in Brian's throat. "He's more a smart-ass than you."

"Doesn't surprise me... mouthy, huh?"

"You have no idea. No, really, *no* idea. Rome's worse than Vince."

That... takes a little to believe, but he can hear how much Brian believes it, all of the wry amusement in his voice and the long-suffering behind it. "Guess I'll take your word for it, til he gets here."

"... Yeah. About that. Rome and me... he's more than just my Vince."

*Here* it is. Here's whatever's making Brian edgy. 'More than my Vince'... Dom's never been stupid, and he knows people, knows the way Brian treats sex with a guy like it's old, old habit. "He wasn't just your right hand -- you two were together?"

"He'd kill me if he heard me saying this. Dom, he was like my Letty. Is."

Then what the hell are you doing with me, Dom wonders. He doesn't say it... isn't sure it isn't written all over his body.

Knows as soon as he gets another good look at Brian's face, the way Brian's looking at him, that yeah, it is, and Brian's mouth firms, his eyes gleaming blue in the dim light when he reaches for Dom's hand, wraps his familiar callused fingers around Dom's. "I think now's the right time for that story."

"Alright. Tell me." Dom shifts a little, settles in. He'd understood, earlier, when Bri'd said he made a trade for Rome, that something had happened that the Feds had leverage on Brian to haul his racer ass back in under Fed rules and regulations. He'd have done anything he could for Vince... and yeah, he'd sure as hell have done *anything* for Letty. Braga's face flashes through his mind for a second. He doesn't have time to deal with that now.

"First I have to tell you about the *first* time me and Rome weren't running together, because the both of us were a pair of stupid kids, for you to get how the Feds managed to get me *back* in. My dad always wanted me to be a cop, like him. Rome... always hated cops. 'Course, there wasn't a cop in Barstow that didn't hate him right back."

"Yeah? How come?"

"Because he's a smart-ass Black punk -- in California -- who has a problem with authority, and he always did. His father didn't *help* with that." Brian's voice goes tight, almost a snarl.

Black? Really? Hell, he'd always known Brian -- blond, California-beautiful white boy Brian -- dealt better with being down in their neighborhoods, with Edwin and his mouth and the rest of the guys, than most. That... kind of helped explain it. At least a little. "Dad didn't help, huh?" Nasty, nasty edge in Brian's voice, and what was up with that?

"His dad was military. Wanted Rome to be a soldier. Figured that would straighten him out -- literally, though he didn't know that, thank God."

"...soldier. For a guy you say's got a worse mouth than Vince, and is... what, bi?" Dom can *hear* just how bad an idea that would be.

"Far's I know, yeah. I never got any clue that he wanted any other guy, but... hell, I didn't know he wanted *me* until he kissed me."

"At how old?" Dom cocks his head to the side a little, thinking the earlier bit over. Black soldier, maybe an officer, maybe not, and a kid that was street punk all over, and running with a White boy? Yeah, alright. He can see lots and lots of ways that could have gone real, real bad. One of them obviously happened... Brian'll get to telling him which one.

"Fifteen. I was a couple months shy of sixteen." Brian's mouth curves a little, his eyes softening, going distant.

"Back when those couple of months mattered -- God, you two were together before you were *driving*..."

"Well, legally, at least.... yeah."

Dom laughs, shakes his head. "Solo, I meant, and yeah, 'legally'."

"Not that that part ever mattered much... "

"And your daddy a cop?"

"I said *he* wanted me to be one. Never said I always did."

Lot of old tension there, lot of old strain... no real surprise, though. Not with how things keep turning out for him and Brian. "Alright. Anyway. Your buddy."

"Rome's smart. His problem is he doesn't think he is. He just... he acted like he didn't care about getting the hell *out* of there, even though he always said he'd be famous one day. The fights we had, senior year... "

"Bad? You wanted to get out worse than he acted like he did?" Brian's never been the kind to be content in a little town like Barstow, not from anything Dom's ever seen.

"I *know* he wanted out of there. I wanted us to go to L.A., college there, start a garage. He didn't. And if I couldn't do what I wanted, I might as well make Dad happy." Soft voice, just an edge of bitter, Brian's eyes narrow and cold. "I wanted to be the kind of cop he wouldn't hate. Prove he'd been wrong, with all the shit he'd always said."

"...oh, *fuck*. And with a mad-on against cops -- bet he took you going for one of the cop degrees *real* bad."

"That's sure one way to put it... "

"That why you two weren't talking, the first time?"

"That, and him being in jail because of it... " Brittle and even.

"...*what*?" Brian, who couldn't see *him* caged, with his Letty in jail because he -- Dom cuts the thought off, shakes his head, and listens.

"I went for the Academy as soon as I turned eighteen. Rome was working in one of the garages -- not that I talked to him, he'd made real sure I knew I wasn't welcome anywhere he was, but I kept an ear out. I couldn't actually be a cop until I was twenty-one, but I could work the reserves. Couple months after I graduated, Rome got busted with eight sets of wheels in his possession. Every single one of them hot. *Stupid* of him, he'd never done anything that stupid before, I'd never have *let* him do anything like that."

Dom thinks about that, thinks about things between him and Letty broken bad enough that they weren't talking at all, and his arms tighten around Brian even before he's through talking. "...but you weren't there, and -- he didn't figure he had much left to lose?"

"... I don't know for sure. He blamed me for it. It wasn't me who busted him, Dom, I didn't even know, I swear I didn't, but he -- how it was *my* fault -- "

"... Brian. If you were the kind that could, we wouldn't be here." Brian losing that cool makes his nerves ring the same way the rockslide he nearly got caught in in Chile did.

Brian hauls in a breath, holds it, lets it out on a slow, steady gush. "He spent three years inside for it. When he got out, he was still on house arrest."

"Damn..." Dom shakes his head, hand running down the back of Brian's neck, over his shoulder, feeling Bri taking slow, steady breaths, getting himself back under control, settling down. "Long time to be pissed off... but if I'm putting time together right, he'd have gotten out not all that long before they shoved you my way, right?"

"Yeah. Six, seven months. Managed to get himself a job driving at the derby -- found that out later."

"Alright. So you ran, and...?"

"Got to Miami before I got caught. Bilkins -- he'd been the Fed in your case, it was a 'cooperative effort' between them and LAPD -- had a deal for me. If I helped bring down a big drug lord, Carter Verone, he'd pretend L.A. had never happened. The agent they wanted me to work with was an embarrassment, it was *insulting*, and I said no. Not unless I could pick my own partner." Brian glances at him. "I knew I couldn't trade to get your record wiped. Nobody cared about Rome but me. I didn't even have to think about it." 'You understand why it wasn't you,' all over his calm eyes.

"Nah. Nothing could have gotten mine wiped -- but you could get him clear. Makes sense... what *is* it with you and drug lords, Bri?"

"I don't like drugs. Bilkins would've looked at my records, seen the departmental profile. That would be an easy case to talk me into. But I had something I could give him, something to make him *listen* to me for five goddamn minutes. So I went back."

"Yeah... I don't like them either. Oh... I bet *that* went over well with him."

"I'm just glad he'd won the derby race before he spotted me. Walked *away* from me."

Dom can hear how well *that* set with Brian all over his voice, feel it in the tension of his back under his hand.

"I'd wanted to pretend we could keep it civil, at least in front of Bilkins. So much for that plan. But I got him to listen, at least enough to take the deal. I'd known he would. He was living in a trailer, right up next to the derby. I knew he'd take the deal."

"You were scared as hell he wouldn't."

"... Yeah. Yeah, I was. I'd mattered a lot to him, and I knew he hated me. I knew he'd take the deal. He's too smart to not get the hell out of a cage when he can. But yeah, I was scared. Wasn't gonna tell him that."

"Bri, you don't admit you're scared with guns in your face." He's seen that one up close and personal, more than once.

"He's too damn pushy not to have fought harder if I let him see I was scared he wouldn't take it."

"Yeah, I can see that." He doesn't know Rome yet, but he can see the edges of him in Brian, and Brian got that insane bravado honed somewhere.

"We... got some things worked out, while we were taking Verone down. 'Course, he's the biggest idiot in the state, so as Verone's getting hauled away in handcuffs Rome just *has* to mouth off at him -- I knew he was gonna remember us anyway, but Rome and his stupid shit... that made it even more personal. About a year after the trial was over, and he'd gotten put away, he got out."

"And came after you? This how the Feds got hold of you? 'Cause you can't have just stayed in after you took him down. He wouldn't have taken that."

"We hadn't *caught* the fucker yet when I got put on the Braga case. I traded me going back for Rome getting put in witness protection. I wasn't going to *give* him time to come after us. Verone holds grudges, and he likes making people break."

"Johnny, except worse?" Dom knows that kind... he's seen them too many times.

"Johnny would've liked to think he was that nasty a piece of work. He scared Rome. I know it, even if Rome was careful not to let Verone see it."

"Heh. Yeah, I think I know the type you're talking about. So you've been away from him what, working on three years? Again?" If he's doing all of his math right, seven-plus years of their twenty-nine spent apart, first with prison, and then with the Feds in his way. Vince has only been gone for five, and it's felt like too damn long every minute. If he'd spent that long away from Letty...

"Yeah. At least this time I could talk to him." Brian sighs, the soft line of his mouth tightening a little, wistful. "Like hell I was going through *that* again."

"Still a long damn time to spend apart... but yeah. Makes it some easier."

"Not *enough* easier... but some. Not like I could do anything else."

"Don't you ever get tired of using yourself as collateral, Bri?"

"Better me than him." It's a simple, easy answer. "Nothing else to trade."

That damn loyalty of Brian's, shining and sharp, and this's the only twentysomething on the *planet* that still leaves cookies and milk for Santa, Dom's sure of it. Damn shade of *innocence* that things will come out if he just works the system hard enough. Dom slides his hand, cups it around Brian's jaw. "Don't you ever trade yourself for me. Not for me, alright?"

Brian looks right back at him, all that cool calm brass. "Only if I don't have to."

"*Brian*." 'I don't have anyone left to look out for Mia if you do something that dumbass over me.' He could say it. And he can hear Brian saying back 'didn't stop you before.' Yeah, that won't work. He can't say she had Letty then, because she didn't always. Letty was with him at least half the time.

"Dom. You're family. I picked the wrong family once. I'm not ever going to do it again, and I'm not ever going to let you get caught if there's anything I can do about it."

"Damn it, Bri..." 'I can't lose you, too.' He could say that to Letty... he doesn't, for a second, know if he can make himself say it to Brian. But Brian's his family, they both know that down to the bone, and... maybe he doesn't have to say it for Brian to know it.

"I probably won't have to. You're sneaky, and so am I, and so's Mia, and Rome's got more pure guts than anybody sane."

"Also, your credit's not that good any more, Bri, I'm pretty damn sure." Alright... sounds enough like Brian knows it.

"Yeah, something about busting you out wrecked that... "

"Just maybe?" Dom laughs, just a little, and pulls Brian up the couple of inches with that hold on his jaw to kiss him as hard as he needs to, right now. Rome was his family, still is, Dom *is* his family, and that's not going to change. They'll figure out how to live with this somewhere along the way.

***

When he sees Brian again, the first thing he notices is Brian's *hair*. Rome can see the shadow of a buzz cut under there, all military and slick and controlled, real Federal shit, not finished growing back out yet and, what, did that crazy White boy dye it when he went pig or something? The roots look the right color, but the rest of his hair is this too-shiny bleach-blond crap. The one thing Rome *hadn't* missed about California, not even a little bit.

The second thing Rome notices is just how close Brian's standing to the dude next to him, the big fucker with the shiny, shiny head and arms that look like they could bench-press his car, and a dark, flat-eyed stare that says, loud and real clear, fuck with me and I will fuck you up like nobody you've ever seen in your punk-ass life.

Ain't it just too bad for him that Rome's seen that look too many times to be impressed with it now.

The woman on Brian's other side is a nice-looking girl, all gold skin and dark hair and soft, sweet dark eyes, with a set to her chin like she doesn't mind dishing out shit but like hell she's gonna take it, but this once, Rome thinks, it ain't gonna be a female that gets Brian in trouble.

This time, it'll be that dude.

He doesn't reach out to kiss Brian, or wrap him up in some girly hug, just extends his arm to get one hand in Brian's hair and mess it up until Brian smacks his hand away, grinning, his eyes still the bluest thing Rome's ever seen, all deep and clear and endless as a desert sky, before Brian reaches out to drag him in close, mutters, "God, I missed you," against the line of his throat.

He's missed Brian more in his life than he had these past couple years. In jail, he'd missed Brian like he'd missed real food, missed him at the derby like he'd missed the freedom of real racing. Turns his head a little against Brian's hair because he can't take his eyes off what he can see of Brian's face, the blurred gleaming-happy curve of his mouth and the hint of a tan he's picked up, and Rome knows that's too obvious but he also knows that he can't look away from him and doesn't want to. Brian's still pale, even with his new almost-tan, all white and blue and gold, and looking at him settles into Rome's system like the Arizona sun. Holding him, wrapping his hands around Brian's narrow hips, Brian's fingers spreading over the small of Rome's back, sinks right on down into his bones and pushes away the three years Rome's spent running. "Hey, cuz," Rome says, low and quiet.

"Rome," Brian says back, tightens his grip, and Rome knows he's home.

***

Dude, Rome is unsurprised to find out, is Dominic Toretto, a.k.a. 'Brian's dumbass mark,' 'Brian's man,' 'that crazy L.A. racer,' and 'Dom.' The girl is Mia Toretto, a.k.a. 'Dominic's baby sister,' 'that girl from L.A. who made Brian stupid,' and 'the woman who was too damn smart to put up with Brian's shit.'

Rome feels just a little bad about that. Almost painfully obvious that Brian still likes her, that he maybe loves her under his snowman cool, and that he doesn't have a damn clue what to do about it. Just as obvious that she still likes him, that she loves him, and that she had real good reasons for knowing it wasn't gonna last.

Because there's her, and then there's her brother, and there's the shift in Brian's face, his whole attitude, around Dominic Toretto.

And now there's Rome.

This, Rome is pretty sure, ain't gonna go well, and *that*, he is real sure, is going to make life just as entertaining as he likes it.

***

Dom still isn't entirely sure what he'd expected Brian's Vince to be. He is sure that whatever he'd thought he was getting, still he hadn't planned on what he *got* -- Roman Pearce, Dom has learned this past month, is one hard-edged ex-con -- he had seen that Pearce had spent serious time inside in about two minutes into meeting him, and he hadn't needed Brian telling him to see how much the two of them matter to each other -- punk who is too loud and too pushy and has the biggest mouth Dom has ever been irritated by meeting. 'Pushier than Vince' was a damn understatement.

What he's not is a buster.

Dom's learned one more thing: Brian likes Pearce just that way. When Pearce cracks his jokes, Brian grins and mocks him back, and when Pearce runs his mouth all day Dom can watch Brian relaxing, batting back at him lazy and easy and cool, the skin around his eyes creasing when he smiles widely bright.

Brian can shut Pearce up any time he wants. Dom has watched him do it, reach a hand out and wrap his fingers around the back of Pearce's neck, or wrap an arm around his shoulders to tug him in, and Pearce calms right on down every time.

It doesn't remind him of him and Vince, not the way he'd first thought it would. Brian's right, it reminds him a lot more of him and *Letty*. That soothing of the wild rush of energy she tended to have, always running high-octane, and Dom shakes the thought away, his grip tightening on the wrench in his hand. Killing Fenix hadn't made missing her stop any more than bringing down Braga had, but that wasn't why he'd done it.

Mia isn't wrong very often. She'd been wrong then. It hadn't been about revenge. It'd been about justice, about Letty deserving better.

If Letty were here, she'd punch him for thinking that. Laugh up at him and demand to know how the hell he *thought* she'd go out, Dom, not like she'd die in a bed somewhere. Nothing was that good. At least she'd gone out doing what she wanted, and if he didn't like it... Curve of her mouth in a sharp smile, sweetness under it that he's never been sure she really knew was there, and saying that he could try to prove her wrong.

His shoulder aches a little where her fist would impact.

Dom loosens his grip on the wrench and goes back to the car he's fixing.

***

Toretto ain't actually as bad as Rome had thought he'd be. Hadn't really been sure *what* he'd thought Toretto would be like, if he's being honest, 'cause he'd never figured he'd meet him, but the pieces Brian let slip didn't mention Toretto's sense of humor, or the heat that lives under Toretto's cool. Man's an earthquake waiting to happen, but that's okay -- Rome's from California. Earthquakes ain't new.

Toretto's still fucking crazy, but hell, after Brian nobody seems all *that* crazy, and at least Toretto's stupid for reasons Rome can get. You have as much fun as you can, and you don't leave family behind, and if you can screw over some rich ass while you're at it, it just makes what's already good even better. Rome can get why Toretto does what he does.

Getting it doesn't mean Rome's *not* going to push at him, see if he can find out the rest of what makes Toretto tick, what makes Brian hold on to him so damn tight that Rome already knows there ain't no sense trying to get him the hell off Brian. Dude's Brian's family. That's gonna eventually finish making him Rome's family, no matter that Rome doesn't like that. He's got as much family as he needs with Brian's crazy ass.

But Toretto's in Brian so deep there's no way Rome could get him out, and hell if Rome's going to walk away from Brian just 'cause Brian has shitty taste.

The way Rome sees it, Toretto being family practically makes it his job to annoy the hell out of him.

Especially since Rome can't not see him all over Brian in the dark bite marks down his pale spine. Knows Toretto can see him all over Brian in the marks of Rome's teeth in his shoulder.

***

The other thing Dom's learning about Pearce is that he goes out of his way to irritate him. Loud and in his face, pushing at him like he's after something, and the glint in his eyes doesn't quite go away even when Brian makes him shut his mouth.

Dom can feel the fight coming, winding tighter, rumbling engine-steady under them both, but Pearce keeps dancing just a little away from really pissing him off. He's irritating as hell, and sometimes funny, but Dom knows down in his bones that Pearce is Brian's crew, and that makes him part of Dom's. The fight's coming. Pearce is still going to have to be the one that starts it.

Dom doesn't start fights these days. He knows what's under his skin.

***

Rome hasn't quit pushing at Dom for more than a day or so since he got down here, and Brian has been watching Dom pull his irritation down under control for almost all of that time. Mia mostly thinks he's funny, and so far, he's been able to slide between the two of them before Rome gets going *too* hard, but one of these days, he's not going to be there or be able to, and he'd really love to know what the hell is going on in Rome's head. So he waits for late one night, just the two of them in the house, and sprawls a little more over him in the half-light. "Rome... you and Dom. What is *up* with you?"

Rome shifts, looks up at him, his eyes gleaming and his teeth flashing white when he smiles. "You feel like asking what you really want to know, cuz?"

"Apparently?"

"A'right. So ask what you really want to know."

"Why?" Sometimes, with Rome, it's easiest to just be blunt. And besides, he'll get as much out of what Rome won't say as what he does.

"Why what? Why I keep messing with him?"

"Yeah. Pretty much that, bro."

"'Cause he's your family." Just an edge of emphasis on 'your,' and Rome's mouth tightening.

"Yeah... which is where you're losing me a little on why you think hassling him is a good idea." Well, this is a refreshing change... Rome isn't dodging his questions nearly as hard as he could be.

"He ain't mine, bro."

Brian half-rubs at his temple, breath hissing through his teeth a little, and the only thing that keeps him from saying 'yet' is Rome's huge-ass stubborn streak. That'd be a good way to have it never happen... and he can't leave Dom again.

"I *know* he's your family. Man, I got eyes. I think your taste is shitty as hell, man, but I got eyes."

Rome's edgy, tight and sharp... and of course he knows. Dom's not always all that subtle, and neither one of them minds leaving bruises anywhere they won't be seen. Maybe if he handles this right, he can ease Rome down a little. "Yeah, what would be new about you thinking that?"

"Not my fault your taste is always lousy, getting you in trouble." Flash of a grin, sharp and hard, flicking over his mouth. "'Cept me." The look on his face is half a dare, narrow-eyed and focused.

"More like I got bad habits about my taste *from* you..." Brian grins, falling into the teasing that comes so easy with Rome, and leans over again, closer, trying to pull him out of this. There's only so much he can do, or say, here, but maybe he can get some of this smoothed over this way.

Rome snorts, shaking his head, leans back in close to Brian, warm through the space between them, the edge in his eyes easing away. "Please, cuz, you are proof of my shitty taste."

Brian snorts back, shakes his head. "Please. Proof of your shitty taste was *'Becca*."

"Man, don't even play, you only think that because *you* couldn't get with her."

"No, bro, I didn't want to."

"Liar. I saw you checking her out. 'Course, with the bubble that girl had... "

"Didn't say she wasn't pretty, I said I didn't want to get with her, bro."

"But she was hot, man!"

"And didn't have a brain in her head, cuz."

"You seen her, Brian. Girl didn't need one."

"Most of the time, my taste needs at least some -- well, maybe barring you."

"Ain't that what I got you for, bro?" Laughing and amused, his eyes shining. "You gotta have *some* use."

"...yeah. Pretty much." Brian pauses, shakes his head... and the other thing on his mind circles around again. He doesn't really want to do this right now, but it needs said, before something happens that makes him wish he had. "Rome, seriously... don't push Dom too hard, all right?"

"Why the fuck *not*, cuz?" Almost edging on angry before Rome pulls the grin over his face, but Brian can see the edge coming back up in his eyes. "What, you that worried I'd break him?"

"No, Rome," calm and cool and dead even serious, so Rome knows he needs to *listen* right now, not go flying off the handle. "You're not pissing him off enough now that I'm worried *yet*. It's just... I've seen Dom fight, and I've gone one hard round with him. If you push him far enough he snaps... we can't afford for you to be down that long."

"You *don't* think I ought to know where he snaps, homie?" Cool-voiced right back, easy ice, his shoulders drawing up tight, but at least he's staying still instead of losing it. "I ain't gonna manage getting rid of him, I got to work with him -- I got to know him."

"If I never see Dom get pushed to the point he loses control again, it's gonna be too soon, Rome. I'm not asking you to be anything but you -- and God knows you push like you freaking *breathe*, you *lunatic*, but--" Brian stops, shakes his head a little. He's not going to be the one that pushes this to a full-on fight, not when Rome's keeping it together. Listening might be too much to hope for, but he's hoping anyway. "Know what? Never mind. It's not like you're going to listen anyway."

"Hey, you never push, you never get nowhere, man." Rome grins at him, wide and sharp and just as insane as he's always been.

It makes him sigh, half-bury his face in one hand for the snort it gets. "Why do I bother trying to warn you about anything?"

"Because sometimes you're stupid, Brian." Cheerful and laughing.

He'll take what he can get. He put the warning out there. "Sometimes I'm too much of an optimist, sure."

"Sometimes you stupid. Chill, man." Easy grin spreading wide over Rome's face, leaning in to wrap one arm over Brian's shoulders tighter. "It's gonna be cool."

***

Pearce just doesn't *stop*, Dom thinks to himself, eyes going just a little narrow as that sharp mouth runs, pricking at him over the last shit they'd pulled and the way it hadn't gone as perfect as he intended -- and he's had a long enough day without more. He turns around, fast enough that Mia's eyes go wide and Brian's mouth goes tight. He's not Brian, there's only so far he's willing to be pushed, and it's sure as shit been a long enough day that he's already tired of it without Pearce making things worse. "Pearce. All we lost was a car. Leave *off*."

Pearce's eyes narrow just a little, crossing his arms over his chest, shifting his weight. "It was a *nice* car," drawled out slow, and done, Dom *knows*, just to piss him off. "And I liked it."

Dom knows Brian would say something like 'funny, from how much you bitched about it.' He might've said that to Jesse, once. Or 'you liked it so much, we'll build it again.' He'd've said that to Vince. Pearce's neither one. "Car; all of us. Pretty sure I know which one's more important."

Pearce just *grins*, a hard-edged broad stretch of his mouth. "That ain't the part I'm arguing with, big homie -- I'm just saying you fucked up. And it cost."

He hears Brian's breath hiss between his teeth a little, and despite that he knows that he's about to play right the fuck into Pearce's hands, which is about the last thing he's interested in, that Brian's just as sure Pearce is pushing on purpose as *he* is -- "You're that pissed that it cost, you want to *try* and do something about it?"

Mia's voice cuts over Pearce, "Oh my *God* take this shit *outside*, both of you!"

"You heard the lady, cuz." That damn grin that never comes off his face widening, sharpening, Pearce's eyes glittering when he shifts his weight again, all hipshot brashness.

"You're closer to the door," Dom points out, and he's more than half thankful for Mia's snarl -- he doesn't mind being shoved around by his sister. The hell if he was going to let *Pearce* push him into this kind of crap. Brian's eyes are freezing cold against his side, and he turns his head just enough to look at his partner. Bri doesn't have to worry, he's not going to hurt Pearce any worse than it takes to settle things.

For once, Pearce doesn't give some smart-ass comment. He just turns, walks out the door.

Brian doesn't follow, and Dom feels himself smile just a little wider for that Bri knows he doesn't need to. Out, into a decent enough patch of open space -- middle of the street, but there's nobody on it this time of night but people as nuts as they are.

He knows Pearce can't fight worth shit. None of that's showing in how he's standing, all muscle and confidence, that grin finally off his face. Except for how it's showing in his eyes. Amused and laughing, gleaming like he thinks this is the funniest thing he's seen all month.

Dom just arches one brow, leaning his weight back on his left leg and waiting. He knows damn good and well Pearce still wants -- for whatever reason -- for him to be the one that starts this. Too bad. He doesn't do that kind of thing any more. Brian lets Pearce tug him around... Dom still doesn't have any intentions of it. Pearce wants this fight -- he's going to be the one that brings it.

That laughter draining out of Pearce's eyes, his head tilting, and Dom can practically see the confused irritation all over him. If he were a girl, he'd be pouting. If this hadn't been one shitty day, Dom would find that funny.

"Man, I *know* you ain't scared of me, so why the hell you over there?"

"Because you're the one that wants this fight, Pearce."

He laughs, tossing his head back, before he takes a step in closer. "Like you *don't*, cuz. I know I been driving you crazy."

'Not nearly crazy enough that I need to knock you around for it,' he thinks, almost idle, and it's not what he says. "You drive everyone crazy, I knew that two days in."

"Hey, everybody needs some entertainment now and then."

"I'd say something, but you've seen my idea of fun a few times by now..."

"You almost as crazy as Brian." Pearce takes another step in, looks him up and down, slow and casual. "Knew there had to be *something* interesting under there."

That's a *real* dismissive look, the words are kind of a backwards compliment, and if he was wired a little different he might get hacked off at that kind of look. He's not, and that Pearce is still trying to manipulate him into starting this shit really would be funny any other day.

Huff out of Pearce's breath in a sigh -- he *would* be pouting if he was a girl, and for a second Dom can almost see the sulky irritation in Pearce's eyes before he rolls his neck, curls his fingers in, a slow and obvious and showy -- and deliberate -- tell.

Sulky, sullen, and *displaying* real loudly that he's going to do something... all right, Pearce, Dom thinks, time for you to either stop showing off and back down, or actually live *up* to it.

The flash of Pearce's eyes when he looks at Dom again is a better tell than the flex of his fist. When the punch does come, it's fast, a graceful swing that looks like it would hurt. If it landed. It doesn't. Dom blocks -- Pearce's arm's going to be bruised in the morning, not that he'll be able to see it -- and slams a fist in up under his ribs, brings his other hand down out of the block and the heel of his hand up into Pearce's jaw. Not enough distance for him to get the force to break it -- he doesn't want to, anyway.

The blow still knocks Pearce's head sideways, his breath shoving out of his lungs, and he goes down to one knee for long enough to drag in one shuddery inhale before he looks up, his eyes gleaming, the smile spreading over his face before he lunges back up.

Idiot. Dom drops out of the way of the lunge and the fist, and slams the edge of his hand down into the base of Pearce's skull, knee coming up into his ribs.

That knocks Pearce down again, knocks his breath out -- again -- and he hits the street, catching himself on his hands, his knees, half-shaking his head with a wince. Inhale, exhale, "*Fucker*," before he gets back up. Can't fight for shit, but he can take a hit just fine.

'Fairly often,' is on the tip of his tongue, but now's not the moment to hit at that. Not when he's already going to have to do another round of this. He moves while Pearce is still picking himself back up, short straight-punch into his ribs and uppercut into his jaw.

This time Pearce lands on his ass, and his snarl flashes his teeth white in the faint light, edged with red. Must've bitten his tongue when Dom hit him this time. He stays down for a second, two, staring up at Dom with the growl twisting his mouth before he shoves himself up again.

"Dammit, Pearce," Dom snarls under his breath -- nobody that fights this bad should be able to take the kind of damage he's dishing out without so much as a wince, what the *hell* is up with this? He doesn't know, but it's stopping, right now. He drops his left shoulder deep, right foot back, just in time to catch Pearce's incoming rush on it, and throws his weight into his body and his left hand spreads hard over his sternum as he shoves back. Half-blocks the swing of Pearce's left hand with his right arm, but it connects deeper than he means in the second before he forces them both to the ground.

And *now* Pearce is staying down, staying on his back, drawing in deep shaky breaths under Dom's hand, looking up at him. Calm and set, his eyes shining in the light, and his body slowly relaxing back down.

*Better*. Even though that's a weird expression, just... It's like he's just -- waiting. Waiting. Dom wants to be about six feet back from him, right now, but he might have to do this *again* if he lets it look like he's backing down. He shifts his weight, a little, moving more of it to his knees, leaving enough on his ribs to keep him from doing anything as stupid as the rest of tonight has been. "How bad did you catch your tongue?"

"Not bad," he answers, low and rough, and then grins, a quick, hard flash that doesn't match the blank patience in his eyes even when he sticks his tongue out. "See?"

Dom snorts, rolls his eyes to let Pearce know he's not particularly impressed by the gesture, then throws all of his weight onto his knees, down into his toes and up *off* of Pearce. "Yeah, doesn't look too bad." He recognizes that kind of patience, that 'I can't do shit about this' too fucking well. He's a long way and seven years from prison other than those few months of the trial, but he knows that expression. He's never had it aimed directly at him, and he sure as fuck never wanted it to be.

Pearce stays down, looking up at him and. Laughing. Soft, edge of nasty in there. "You think I'd have started this unarmed if I thought you'd lose it?"

Strength in there right alongside that edged dark, and steady, and now that he's not *on* him Pearce's edges are coming right back up again. That's not a bad thing at all, as far as Dom's concerned. "Pearce, if you were that stupid or I was that easy to push, Bri'd be out here."

"Nah. He'd have tried harder to talk me out of fucking with you."

"Think the question is, would you have listened?" It doesn't surprise him, much, that Brian tried to ease Pearce off of jabbing at him. Bri's the kind of cool that means he'd rather have the people around him not sparking flash-fires off each other all the time. He's not surprised that Pearce probably took it as a challenge, either. God knows Vince never backed down about Bri.

"Course not," Pearce says, and laughs again. It's a little better this time, more like him, his grin spreading wide over his face. "Had to make sure Brian wasn't running with a pussy."

"You, Pearce, are crazier than you call Brian," Dom snorts, shakes his head at the complete and utter lunacy of that. "That's what this has all been about?"

"Started that way, yeah."

Dom cocks a brow, curious, looking down at him in the reflected light from clouds overhead and buildings still partially lit even this late, and waits to see if he's going to get any more of an answer.

"Then I just wanted to see what it took to get your attention," he finishes, and his smile is sharp, his eyes laughing.

Dom shakes his head a little, rolling his eyes again. "You *are* crazy. C'mon, Rome," he puts a hand down, waiting for it to be taken, "it's been a long fucking day."

"Man, you ain't gotta tell *me* that," Rome says back, wrapping his hand around Dom's, letting himself be hauled up.

Enough laughter there that he can let the last of the tension slide out of his body, making sure Rome's steady on his feet before he lets go, then slides his hand up to settle it against the back of his neck lightly. "Might let Mia check that," he suggests, low, leaving his hand just where it is. He's seen how Brian's hand there calms Rome right on down, and if Rome will let that work for him, too...

"And listen to her bitch? Girl's going to be giving me that *look* for the next month anyway, just like Brian." Rome bows his head a little, baring his nape, pushing back faintly against Dom's hand.

It's almost the way he pushes into it with Bri, and that lets Dom settle some more -- the shift is enough to make him believe Rome knows he *wouldn't* to be proof for right now. He holds on a little tighter, for a second, as he heads them towards the house -- if you could really call it that. "Nah, she doesn't normally keep that glare up more than a week. Brian... no idea."

"He'll call me a dumbass, I'll remind him of *him* being a dumbass -- fucking *boat* -- and he'll forget about it until the next time he thinks I'm doing something I shouldn't." Keeps his head lowered that bare edge, Dom's fingers brushing over the base of his skull.

"Yeah, that sounds like you two," Dom agrees, amused by how completely predictable they can be.

"It's worked a long time."

"What, twenty-three-odd years, with a couple of breaks in there?"

"... Something like that. Yeah." Edge of flat in Rome's voice, tensing a little under Dom's hand.

That wasn't what he'd meant to do. "Thought I could still do math *that* basic," he says, quiet joke at himself. He'd meant it to point out that Brian'd told him more than a little about Rome while they were waiting for him to get there.

Rome laughs, and it's a hard, vicious noise, but he eases just a bit. "Just don't like thinking about the breaks."

"Yeah... I hear you," Dom agrees, changing the way his hand wraps around the back of Rome's neck to something a little steadier, stronger. He doesn't like thinking about how long Vince had been inside not knowing where he was, him not knowing if Vince was okay or if Dom just wasn't hearing that he wasn't. "*Goddamn* cops, feds, and every other L.E.A. on the planet."

"I hear *you*," a low snarl, shoving back into Dom's hand without a wince. It's got to hurt, Dom knows. "Fucking pigs."

He just holds on, knowing Rome just gave up how to actually *hurt* him, as opposed to just deal out pain -- he doesn't want, or intend, to do either. It's not a bad thing to know where the scars that still hurt are. Hell knows he's got a few of his own. He shifts his hand, shifts his body, and makes Rome look at him. "You weren't ever going to manage to needle me into swinging at you, Rome. What it would take... you've got more respect for your family than to do. I *don't* start fights. I end them."

Rome tilts his head, looks at him, and this is an expression he's seen on Rome's face before, this slow, easy, almost soft smile. He's only ever seen it aimed at Brian, and half the time Dom's seen it Brian couldn't. "Yeah. I got that. You're like Brian."

"Yeah... there're ways we're a lot alike," Dom has to agree with that. Brian will mouth right up to the line of where the fight's going to start -- but it takes someone else to actually start it. There'be been days Dom thinks Bri just does it because he was a cop too long -- but it's not, really. It's that Brian's just as controlled as he is, and from how he is with Rome, he was like that long before he started carrying a nickel-slick badge.

"Crazy-ass showoffs," Rome agrees, that smile going sharp again, his eyes gleaming amusement.

"Mostly we're good at it," Dom shrugs, grinning at that wide, sharp smile.

"Everybody needs a talent, too."

"Yeah." Dom grins, lets his hand ease on the back of Rome's neck, and goes back for the door.

He still thinks Rome was damn crazy for trying this way -- but at least he gets why it was so damn crazy now. Enough, at least. If Brian kills, it's with a weapon. Dom knows that with enough pressure he can do it by accident, and with his hands.

Rome's warm in front of him, mocking and brash and still easy under his hand, and yeah, Dom knows him better now. Rome knows him better now. Doing it this way was crazy, but it wasn't stupid.

He's fairly sure Rome isn't going to stop with the comments -- it's just his way to push, test the boundaries and buck any limit put on him -- but they'll be more like what he does at Bri. Dom can deal with that. Han was easygoing, more like Leon than anything, and Rome's nothing like Vince except in brash and loyalty -- but he fits here, with them.

Rome's Brian's family -- but there are ways that after what just happened, that's not the most important thing about this any more. Brian's not bad at getting at least part of what it's like inside... but Rome knows it the same way he does, and that Mia and Brian are never *going* to.

***

Brian's under one of the cars they *didn't* lose last night, working on the brakes he abused the hell out of, when he hears Dom's voice call out. "Hey, Rome!"

"What, Dom?" Rome calls back, and Brian's head nearly hits the undercarriage before he remembers he's under the car right now. Dom's used Roman once or twice, but it's almost always 'Pearce', and it's *never* been Rome. That Rome answered to it, too, just that lazy and amused, that he used 'Dom' and not 'Toretto' -- if anything good came out of that mess last night that left Rome with bruises Brian had known were there even if he couldn't see them and Dom with a set of his mouth and his body that said he wasn't entirely happy with the world, it's definitely this.

He's been praying for something like this, something that would get them past Rome's 'not my family,' for weeks, and for just a second he's on Mia's side about 'what the hell?' that it took a fight for them to ease down. And even more on Mia's side that Rome's freaking *insane* messing around with Dom actually worked -- kind of -- to get Rome what he wanted. At least enough for Rome to have settled, and Dom's obviously decided that Rome really is family. In the ways that matter to *him*, no matter if Brian's there or not.

Thank the car gods.

He settles to working on the brakes again, listening to Rome mouthing off -- a little -- about what Dom wants him to do, and Dom laughing low in his throat as Rome does it anyway. He could get really, really used to that sound.

And to the sound of Mia joining in on cheerfully picking on both of them -- they'd found a place this time that let Dom work and Mia be right there with them again. It's nothing like the Echo Park garage that Mia sold a while back, but it's the closest thing they've had so far. The three of them aren't going to enjoy leaving it, and Rome seems to like it, too. That doesn't mean they don't know there's only so long they can stay anywhere.

'Course, it's not like where they are matters... Brian's got everything he could want, no matter where he is, as long as he's with them.

***

He knows Rome better now. Their fight had settled Rome down, and yeah, Dom can work with him just fine now that Rome's willing to work with *him*.

But there's some things he's not sure of. Something down in the back of Rome's head sometimes that flares dark and nasty in his eyes on a bad night, or a bad day, when even Brian can't ease him on down. Dom needs to know what that is.

He's pretty sure he's got an an idea.

Asking Rome wouldn't get him anywhere useful. Asking Brian...

It isn't ever hard to find Brian these days, and it's not hard to cut a little time away to get Brian on his own, away from the other two. Dom just drags him out for a drive, and finds somewhere to pull over off the road, turning in the seat of the late-80s Toyota that passes for street transportation around here to get comfortable.

"Your boy Rome... he all right?" It's not the way he really wants to ask this, but it ought to work.

Brian blinks, tips his head to the side a little. "Seems like he's better since Mia shoved you two outside... Why, Dom?"

"So those times even you can't settle him down and I can hear him pacing until three in the morning, those are just him being a little bit eccentric?" Three, four, six... Dom knows Rome can't fight. That still doesn't make sense. But the way he moves sometimes in those moods, tight and tense and wired, Dom might almost forget it.

Brian's face goes hard, tight under the ice in his eyes. "'Eccentric'? I wish. He just... when he gets like that, he won't talk to me. Says it wasn't my fault he was in there, he ain't talking about it."

He'd wondered if Brian knew for sure what was under those moments. Knew Brian wouldn't understand it the way he did -- Rome wouldn't want him to, no more than Dom does. But for Rome not to tell him... Dom's kept secrets from his family, and every time he's regretted it. "Huh," he says, slow and thoughtful, and thinks about the patient, tight set of Rome's mouth when Dom had had him pinned.

"I never could get it out of him when we were in Miami, and he doesn't want to talk about whatever's behind it now, either. 'Bro, we've done this...'"

"And distract you into something else to talk about?" Dom laughs softly, a low chuckle in his throat. "Sounds like him. At least now he does say it wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, pretty much..." Brian sighs, shakes his head, and Dom can see the relief spread up under his skin. "We worked that out when were were still trying to bust Verone -- once he knew I didn't know, he came around pretty quick."

He'd been an idiot to think Brian would've ever done that to him, but Dom can halfway see the logic of that teenage punk of a kid. If Brian could be a cop in the first place... yeah, he can understand Rome not knowing where Brian's new limits would be. "He ever tell you why he'd figured you had known?"

"He said something about dad, one time. That he figured dad would've told me, or some shit. Yeah, right... dad knew I was barely staying where he wanted me anyway. If I'd known Rome was in trouble..."

"You'd've lit out like somebody'd hit the NOS on *you*," Dom agrees, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. There's a story under there. Rome so sure Brian's father would've... what, gloated? "Guess your daddy the cop didn't like your buddy any better than the other cops did."

"Oh, God, dad hated him. Hated him dragging me into trouble -- really hated that I normally was the one that stayed to take whatever trouble was about to come down. What, I was supposed to let *Rome* take it? Please. I'm the cop's *kid*, they'd take it a hell of a lot easier on me."

The only reason Dom doesn't kiss him for that, taste and *have* all that automatic bone-deep loyalty, is that he needs to know what winds Rome up so tight, and he doesn't need to be distracted away from it. Sooner or later, that's going to snap, and Dom needs to know which way the line's going to cut. "Yeah," he says, low-voiced and just a little rough. "Sounds like you."

"You'd know..."

"I would," Dom agrees, and smiles at him, lazy and slow, matching the gleam in Brian's eyes.

He can see Brian wanting to move, come out of the seat over on to him, push all that vibrant light-skinned strength up against him and give both of them up into what's always been between them... but Bri can see him not moving, and the tip of his head instead is 'what else is on your mind, Dom?' loud and clear.

And it's a good question. There's a lot still on his mind. Like why Rome moves like somebody who ought to be able to fight. Like why Brian can, and Rome can only manage to start the fight. And take damage. He can't forget that part. Like why Rome hasn't told Brian anything about his time inside. "You know, it's kinda funny. I never met an ex-con who couldn't fight." Mostly because anybody with Rome's mouth would fight or die.

"He never could... I don't know how he came out of there still not -- I don't get it. Rome always started shit in high school when people were giving us trouble, because I couldn't, dad would kick my ass all over town. But I could finish them if it started around me. And, well, his mouth."

"You fight all right. For a buster," Dom adds, his mouth curving up in a smirk.

"Whatever, Dom."

"So why'd you let him be that bad at it?"

When you know where to look, and Brian's not trying to lie, his tells are in the corners of his mouth and the light in his eyes and the fingers of his left hand -- and all of them, all at once, tell Dom he's just hit right onto the cause of at least half of this. "If he'd ever learned to block with a hit..." Bri's hand tenses up, like even now he wants to bury that fist into the nearest wall.

"He's fast, and he's strong, and he knows how to move. And he's good at taking hits." Dom watches Brian's face, the way his eyes narrow, the tightening of the thin skin underneath.

"*Too* goddamned good. And yeah, he is."

"Way too good for somebody who can't really fight." Brian knows exactly why Rome can't -- won't? -- learn to stay in a fight, and why he knows how to take it. It's all over him. His loyalty again, not to say what Rome hasn't, and Dom still wants to kiss him for it. But he needs to know, and Brian needs to talk. Let this out. "He ever explain that to you?"

"He didn't *have* to, I knew -- God, if I'd just.."

There we go, Dom thinks. C'mon, Bri, let it out. "Tell me."

It was one thing when this little discussion was just about what was hurting Rome. This is hurting *Brian*. He thinks it's his fault, whatever this thing is.

Brian shifts, twists, dumps his body back across the seat between them and back more until his head is half against Dom's chest, half on the upper curve of his arm, and Dom knows good and well that Brian's hiding, giving him nothing but bleach-bright curls and the line of his jaw -- and the tension in his back against him and his hands. That Bri didn't just curl into himself... how long has this been waiting to come out?

"*Arizona*." Dom softens his voice, reaches up to rest his hand on Brian's shoulder, the familiar hard lines of muscle. "He's family. I need to know this. I need to know him like I know you."

"I was sixteen-- not all that far into it -- and I'd headed over to his place. You tease me about 'second-story artist'... we both learned it avoiding our folks. Late, but not that late, and I walked up -- figured I'd hang on the porch til he noticed me. But the minute I was in the lot I could hear them yelling. His dad, mostly. Pissed off and a little bit unsteady. I always knew his dad drank some when he was off-duty, hell, who didn't? But... "

Dom can hear where this is going, and it makes him stiffen, his face settling into angles he tries not to use when he's not working. He hopes he's wrong. "There's drinking and there's drinking."

"And there's loving your kid, and hating what he's doing, and not knowing how to change it, and 'damn it, Roman, if you won't straighten your ass out'..."

Old, bitter hate in the mimic. Dom knows he's not wrong just from that, but he's not going to make Brian stop talking now. Not when it took years -- over a decade -- for him to be able to say it. "He'd do it for him."

"*Yeah*. That was when I figured out why Rome's lip was bleeding when he kissed me the first time, why he wouldn't tell me what'd happened. I knew his daddy couldn't stand me, knew it was why Rome was over all the time -- didn't know it was that much. I -- "

Dom's never met Rome's father. He hates him anyway, for the teenage kid kissing his best friend with blood on his mouth -- the *balls* of that -- and the man who's too damn good at taking damage. And he hates him for Brian. "It wasn't your fault."

"I know, Dom... but I knew how much Rome loved his dad even when he hated him. Hell, I'm a cop's kid, I know what you're *supposed* to do when you know there's domestic -- and I *knew* Rome'd lie for him. I knew he'd say it was just a fight, do anything but let *anybody* think he was a victim, or that his dad was -- fuck, you *know* what would've been said."

"Spare the rod," Dom says, his voice hard. "And he caused trouble. Man's within his rights -- 'what else to do with a boy like that'? Yeah, Brian. I know." His father had never hit him, never once raised a hand to him, but Dom's seen and heard a couple fights like that. He knows everything that would have excused it, especially when they were kids. Not so much, any more, and he doesn't think that's a bad thing. "You're positive it wasn't just one fight." It's not a question.

"I know it wasn't. Not -- *not* like some of the things I saw as a cop. Rome would've fought back, if that was going on. And his dad would *never*. He wasn't... I hated the son of a bitch, but he was trying to protect his son. Be a good father."

"From *what*?" It's almost a snap, Dom's temper surging. "You?"

"Me, the shit he was getting himself into -- I told you, he wanted Rome to straighten up, be a soldier; 'something worthwhile,' anyway..."

Picturing Rome's smart mouth and adrenaline-junkie grin gone military is one hell of a headache. "You can't make a racer something he's not."

"No... you really, really can't. No matter how hard you try." Brian twists a little, looks up at him -- about the only time Brian looks *up* at him, which is still kind of weird -- and smiles.

"Guess you'd know that," he rumbles, wrapping that edge of temper back down, snugging his anger back into place. It explains a couple things. Like problems with authority that've made Dom raise an eyebrow once or twice. Yeah. That explains some things.

"Yeah. Just a little bit, maybe."

He's not going to get the rest of his answers out of Brian. Rome keeps too many secrets -- they're going to change that, eventually, and something clicks. "He doesn't know you know."

"Nah. He wouldn't tell me, so I couldn't see shoving in his face that I knew."

Of course Rome wouldn't tell him. Rome has his pride. He wonders, a little bit, if Rome hadn't been trying to protect Brian, too. Rome knows Brian's loyalty, and he'd probably known it would mess Brian up to have Rome getting in that kind of trouble over him. He wonders how much of that is why Rome won't tell Brian about whatever keeps him up some nights. "Probably smart."

"I thought so at the time, anyway."

"You pull it off sometimes."

Brian laughs, dark, but it's a laugh, and starts to sit up, shaking his head. "About as often as you do."

Oh, no, Dom's not letting Brian away from him when he still feels that tense. Tightens his grip on Brian's shoulder, wrapping his other arm around Brian's waist, and he spreads his hand over Brian's back, stroking his fingers over too-tight muscle.

"Mmm..." Brian shifts in his hold, settling in a little easier, long breath out and in against his arm...

That's better. Dom doesn't let go, rubbing Brian's back gently. He'd needed Brian to tell him this, but he's not going to hear anything else he needs, and now what he needs to do is calm Brian back down. Doesn't seem like Brian's minding any, not from the way he's settling in against him, one of those quiet half-hums in his voice still.

Dom shuts his eyes, leaning his head back against the window, his hands idly looking for tension to rub out. They've got plenty of time for this, Brian warm and starting to loosen up in his grip. Steady rise and fall of his chest under Dom's arm, calming as an engine's easy purr.

***

She's reading at what she uses for a desk these days, still studying -- next time they do some of Dom's city contacts, Mia's making sure somebody gets her up-to-date textbooks. She hasn't finished her degree yet, but some of the places they stay... she's the closest thing to a doctor around.

Besides, if one of these idiot men gets hurt, it's sometimes easier not to go to a hospital. She needs to know more.

She lifts her head out of the book to stretch, spots a sapodilla laying beside her, smiles a little. She wouldn't have expected that kind of small, absent kindness out of Rome, from the little Brian had said, but he does it a lot. Dump a drink by Dom while he's wandering by, a piece of fruit or a sandwich by her when she's studying.

It's better with Rome here, Mia thinks. Dom needs somebody like him, somebody like Vince, even if Rome takes less shit than Vince and starts more. She hadn't known anybody could start more shit than Vince.

She hopes he's all right. Wonders what it would take for them to be able to get him back, too, and if she should even let herself hope for it. She gave up hoping for Leon to come back when he left after Jesse died, and she stopped hoping for Letty when she put her in the ground.

She's not sure when Dom remembered he needed a family, but watching him with Rome, it's obvious that's what he is. Now that that stupid fight's over, every time she hears Rome jibe, Dom's eyes half-lid with easy amusement, his mouth curving, lazy and pleased.

It took her a while to notice, but there'd been this edge under Dom's skin, that tension in his muscles that Brian and she didn't seem like they could ease... but the more Rome slots into place, the more that tightness goes away. Sometimes Dom looks a little like he did when he first came home after Lompoc, when he'd look around -- it's a lot better hidden now than it was then -- like he can't quite believe they're there, but he doesn't want to be anywhere else.

She doesn't think that's just because Brian is happier, even though he is. It's like he's *more*, like turning up a dimmer switch. She hates that analogy, but it's all she can think of. Brian being even more himself. The same casual confidence she knows from Dom, and that Brian had had the first time, even when he'd thrown his slip down and lost, but... that almost-kid he'd been, with the kid she'd been, and watching his effortless ease with Rome, she wonders how much of that youth was Brian and how much of it was 'Brian Earl Spilner.'

Brian always moves like he can take anything the world can throw at him. He always has. With Rome there, he moves like he's daring it to try, and Rome just eggs him on, all sharp-edged smiles.

Of course, Brian encourages *Rome* more often than anybody sane would. Rome and his shit, his endless smart mouth -- okay, Mia admits Rome's funny, but the way Brian plays right back with him... it's been niggling at her for weeks, trying to figure out exactly what that is. Amused, affectionate, and there are ways it reminds her a lot of Dom and Letty... indulgence. That's the word she wants.

Half the time, if Dom acted like that with Letty, all the easy, laughing yielding (and both of them knowing it was going to last right up until Dom decided not to) Brian does with Rome, Letty would play along. Half the time it erupted in a fight.

Rome lets Brian get away with letting Rome get away with it every time.

It's easier with Rome here. *Her* life is easier, and Mia hadn't really realized that until just now. Smoothing down Dom and sharpening up Brian, and that makes it easier to *live* with them, but he makes her life easier, too. Loud and brash and wild that gets her out of her head, filling and defining the hole where Vince isn't. Rome can't help with missing Leon -- nothing can help with missing Jesse, any more than anything can help with missing Letty -- but three people don't make a family. Mia's always been part of four, even after her father died. Even with Dom in jail, there was her mother and Vince and Letty.

Four makes a family.

Mia reaches for her fruit, the flesh of it soft under her teeth, and starts flicking through her mental recipes for the foods Rome likes best.

***

He's never done this like this.

The thought keeps running through his mind, every time he looks at the fact that he's living with, sleeping with, both of them. He's *never* done this like this, never even thought about it. He didn't think he'd ever have reason to. It's not like he didn't spend most of high school with girlfriends, but the only girl that ever mattered enough for him to stay was Mia, way after he and Rome weren't talking, and before that Rome always knew he came first. Still stole his girls, but that was just Rome messing around. He did it right back, any time he figured he could. They were cool, no matter who else they were with.

Now... there's Dom, and all of the ways that Dom matters more to him than his own life does. Than anyone but Rome does -- and if he lets himself be ice-cold honest, he knows there's nothing that could make him leave Dom behind again. The bad thing is... Rome knows it too, and he still came.

Brian had made damn sure Dom knew before Rome *got* here that there was no way he could do anything but be with him. Again, still, whatever the hell you call it when your partner hasn't really been with you in over three years except in phone calls and emails. Wrangling a way to contact Rome at all had been a pain in everyone's ass, but neither one of them had been going to put up with not having it. Brian had known what that would do to Rome, to himself. Had known what it would do to them both to have Rome here and *not* be with him. He wasn't going to have that blow up in their faces -- and he wanted the time to deal if it did. He didn't need it. He still thinks it must have only taken about three seconds past the first surprise for Dom to decide that that didn't matter enough for *Dom* to back off.

There're still moments he's surprised at that. Dom and his kind of forthrightness, Dom and his damn near 'modern Robin Hood' thrill-seeking honor, that stubborn sticking to the code he believes in... yeah, it surprises him sometimes that Dom just seemed to have accepted that Brian was going to be sleeping with Rome, too. But then again, Dom's not the possessive one. That was Letty, for him -- and he can still see Letty backing off the race girls from Dom, the way her eyes narrowed and her voice got sharp. It makes his throat hurt for a minute, before he can shut off all of that guilt and grief.

Dom doesn't have to be possessive... he's gravity. Even if sometimes he doesn't know it.

Trying to deal with how much they both matter to him, when they're both right here with him, can be fucking exhausting. There's a reason he's out here on the pier halfway across the city from the house, and has been for a while. Especially since Rome is ~~jealous~~ possessive enough for *both* of them, sometimes.

It's gotten easier since they had that fight -- Rome isn't leaving marks right over Dom's any more, at least. That doesn't mean it's easy to figure out how the hell to make this *work*.

It keeps feeling like he's got a valve cover just a little bit loose. It's not leaking yet... but if he doesn't figure out where the hell the gasket's weak, he's going to have oil everywhere. One hell of a mess, the kind of pain he could go the rest of his life without knowing again.

He's not good at this -- he hates being out of his depth, even though he's spent a lot of his life in deeper water than he really wanted at the time. There's none of the thrill of a finished case waiting for him to finish navigating all of these turns... just the knowledge that if he doesn't keep it together he's going to crash all three of them.

No way in hell.

But there are moments he feels like he's back in L.A. trying to remember how to *drive*, looking out the window at the cliff edge right the hell under his wheels after a spin.

He hates being scared even more than he hates being out of his depth.

And it's stupid. The worst of this ought to have been when Rome was shoving at all of Dom's buttons he could find and not knowing enough to know how stupid that was, when there was still too much of a chance that things were going to completely explode. That's when he *should* have been scared. But he'd known how to deal with it better, then. Get hold of Rome before things got too tight, ease him down again, however long it took, then go make sure Dom wasn't having second thoughts about putting up with Rome. Or if Rome stormed out, sticking with Dom until Rome decided he was going to bring himself back, and then working on the rest of Rome's temper... had somehow been easier.

There's got to be something wrong with him.

There's a laugh from down the pier, and it sounds so much like Suki's Carisa that his head turns around, looking for her fall of neon-streaked black hair for a minute, looks for Trish and Becky right beside her --

Some days Rome's right, and he is stupid.

Carisa and Becky and Trish, neon and hair-stilettos and bubblegum. It'd been Carisa and Trish when he got to Miami, and then some time when he wasn't paying attention Becky had somehow slipped into the middle of them. He'd had to listen to some of Suki's swearing over the three of them fighting... but he's seen this before. Or at least kind of. 'Pain in the ass triads,' he remembers Suki saying, bright blue Shark Bite in her hand, ice clinking when she waved it for emphasis.

They're not a trio. He can almost hear Rome's 'not my family' echoing in the back of his head, can half-see the look Dom would give him about 'you want what?' But then again... they are a lot better with each other than they were.

He's doing his damnedest to balance between the two of them. He might have to keep doing that for a while.

But... maybe, just maybe, they could be.

It's a finish line -- maybe a starting line? -- to aim for, at least. Because he's seen the ways Dom and Rome *do* get each other, the ways they fall into place. He's not entirely sure if they would be attracted to each other... but he's pretty sure he can figure out how to see if they are, or if they could be.

He's not going to push them -- either one of them. But he can find out what's there.

He gets up, stretching out stiffened muscles, and starts to head back the street to catch one of the overcrowded chicken-buses that really are the sanest way to travel in this part of this country. He's not even going to mind the ride. He's got -- it's not enough to be called a plan, yet. But at least it's better than what he * had* been working under.

***

Brian and his *plans*... yeah, it made sense for Mia to take Brian with her, all Brian's blue-eyed calm and cool skill settling in nice and easy with her sharp brain most people don't see under the sweet, for Dom and Rome to work this end together, and Rome hadn't had any reasons good enough to argue with a plan he could see made all kinda sense. And it's not like he minded having to work with Dom for this, not too bad.

Fact is, if he's being honest, he didn't mind it at all.

So maybe he doesn't want to get rid of Toretto quite so bad anymore. Either one, even if Mia makes Brian stupid and Dom's in way too deep under Brian's skin. Mia has too much smart to keep being stupid with Brian. Dom gets in under everybody's skin, Rome's seeing, or maybe it's that he just gets in their blood. Either way, Rome can roll with this.

Not that he plans to tell Brian that his taste wasn't so shitty after all.

***

It's still just him and Pearce on this end of things, and Dom walks back through the door with food under his arm to the sound of Rome talking to something low, and quiet, and a whole hell of a lot like Dom occasionally half-hears him talking to Brian in the middle of the night. Soft, steady croon of his voice, and what --

He walks around the corner, quiet as he knows how to be, and sees him leaning over half the turbocharger assembly, hands working steady and sure and certain even while he's sweet-talking the part into better behavior. Dom just stands still for a minute, watching Rome's hands, the broad, strong wrap of dark fingers around the shining steel he's working with. All of that high-octane flash and all-over energy Rome has, and right now it's focused down into nothing but the complex parts he's working with. Casual skill as his hands move, and while the skill isn't a surprise -- he knows Rome's good -- the focus is. Pearce is normally all over the place, even when he's working. Showing off, all the time. Right now, he's not... and he's got Dom's attention.

The muscle of his hand moving draws attention back to the long lines of his wrists, straight-black of one of his tattoos working up from that curve, pulling his gaze up along it. Rome's more tattooed than Vince -- at least, than Vince was -- and that takes doing. Wide, dark lines and spirals of ink as flashy as Rome is despite the starkness of the single color, wrapping around the kind of muscle that comes from pumping too much iron and hauling too many tires, engine blocks, and every other part out there. Long, broad lines of his bare shoulders, all the muscle there, too, and Dom's eyes slide down the long curve of his spine, over the muscle over his ribs, down.

Fine, *fine* body, Dom has to admit, and he hasn't minded working with Rome this time. It's been good, some ways, to try and figure out the pieces of him that come out when Brian's not around. Yeah... there are ways Pearce is more wild, when Bri's not there to bring him down, and he can see the reckless kid under that dark skin, the one that thought he had nothing left to lose. But when Brian's not around, he can see how deep Rome learned he was wrong about that, too.

Of course, if six years hadn't taught him that, he'd really have to wonder about Rome's intelligence -- and Brian was right about that. Rome's not stupid, he just enjoys it when people buy the act. When he doesn't feel like acting... there's a sharp mind under there. Crazy as he is, or Brian is, but that's been the mistake of half the law enforcement agencies around the globe. They're crazy, and they know it. Doesn't mean they're stupid. Another lesson life taught all three of them... there're things worse than death, and stupid gets you most of them.

Rome's arm moves, elbow coming back in closer against his body, and Dom looks up it again to the line of his jaw, the rich full curve of his mouth he can only see in profile, the light shining off the skin over his cheekbone, the line of his brow, the curve of his skull. One of these days, he's going to think to mess with Brian about that. Of all the things he and Pearce have in common, that they both shave... it's the kind of funny that will get a rise out of Bri.

Which wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Brian's been... almost tired, lately. Wound a little too tight -- and he knows why. Brian's loyalty has to be riding him, shifting back and forth between the two of them.

Maybe there's a way around that. Just depends on Rome.

He shakes his head a little, shakes the intensity of that focus off for the moment. "That your car, or your girl? The way you're talking to it..."

"Hell, cuz, my girls don't give me this much trouble." It's a laugh, low and soft, Rome turning his head to look at Dom.

Dom laughs, lazy and amused. "Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. I've seen the kind of girls you try and pick up. Once you've got that, food'll probably be hot again."

"What you mean, try?" Rome demands, his eyes glittering laughter right back, one hand gesturing at the hard lines of his body, arrogant and brash and in your face the same way he always is. "Nobody says no to this, homie."

"Mmm... that why that stacked girl in the bronze-beaded cornrows and three-inch platforms tossed her drink in your face?" He knows good and well Rome doesn't think he saw that, had thought he'd been half the club away. He had been. That didn't mean he wasn't still paying attention.

Quick, surprised blink before Rome recovers, his mouth twisting in a slow, lazy smirk. "Too hot for her to handle, bro. Ain't it obvious?"

"Too much trouble, maybe," Dom rolls his eyes, letting his voice do the laughing, and turns to go light one of the burners and re-heat ... whatever this meal is. They were up a while, planning.

"Worth it!" Rome shouts after him, still laughing himself, his voice fading back into that easy, coaxing croon when he turns back to work.

He is... yeah, _caliente_ covers it. Dom's not going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it, not when he's pushing for one more point.

***

Footsteps wake him, and after a second to get his brain going again, he knows it's around three A.M. Another couple of minutes and more movement tell him it's Rome again. Damn. They've changed cities three times and countries once since the last time Rome did this. He doesn't hear Brian, which means this is one of the ones that will keep him up the rest of the night, and bitchy late into the morning. Good a time as any to do something about it.

He gets up, slides out of bed with just enough noise not be obvious that he's moving, and goes to fish a beer out of the battered fridge while Rome's up in the other end of the hall. He twists the cap off and goes to settle on the couch, light from the moon and the street coming in more than enough for him to see by, and waits.

It takes twenty minutes before Rome stops pacing to pause and look at him, silent and still, his eyes gleaming knife-edged in the moonlight. It's longer than he thought he'd have to wait, and one more reason this is going to stop. Two more minutes where Rome doesn't say anything, doesn't move -- he'll mark this on the calendar just to prove Rome really could be quiet for almost half an hour -- before he speaks. Flat and calmly quiet. "What you doing out here?"

"Knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep. Might as well not be awake and feeling the lumps in the mattress."

Soft laugh, just a little bit edged, but everything about Rome is edged right now. All that restless energy turned in, wound tight. He'll take that he got the laugh at all. "How much did Bri ever tell you about me?"

"Not that much. Not like he figured I was gonna need to know it, dig?" Rome tilts his head, his throat flashing silver-dark. "Why you asking?"

"Yeah... I hear you." He nods a little, knowing Rome will see it. No, Brian hadn't ever planned on being back in his doorstep. At least not until Letty showed up there instead. He shifts in the chair, looking across the distance between them at how weirdly, completely still Rome is other than that one, deliberate movement. That's not like him at all. "Thinking about how long it took before I could sleep solid again, once I was out."

His face shifts, an edge of tightness to his mouth Dom can barely see, the reflective gleam of his eyes changing when they narrow. "I been out a while."

"Yeah... if you were out by the time I was running, you would have been. But state and Federal... they handle people different. Especially in our hell-hole of a state."

That's an edge of a smirk, a hint of Rome's nasty streak. It doesn't show often, but Dom knows it's there. "Three years ain't that long. It was long enough."

"Three days is too damn long, hell with three years."

"Yeah." Ice, dark and cold and flat, and Dom knows this isn't a conversation Rome's ever had with Brian. He isn't sorry about that. Brian doesn't understand, and neither of them want him to.

"I told Bri, the first night he kept me out of cuffs, that I'd die before I went back. Before I'd get trapped into that again..." And what, Dom thinks to himself, happens five years later but that I want Braga to pay bad enough that I let myself get arrested? Knowing that Braga was going to do more time, and it would be worse for someone as arrogant as he was, was the only thing that kept him sane. That... and knowing Brian wasn't going to leave him in there. He hadn't had a clue how they were going to manage that, but he knew from the second he heard the courtroom door slam that he was going to be out soon.

"He told me they were gonna put you back in Lompoc. Hell with that plan."

"Yeah... I think everybody agreed on that one." Mia, Brian, him, Omar and Tego, some of his other contacts that Mia'd used setting things up.

Rome doesn't reply. That's not strange. There's nothing to be said. But that he stays quiet, looking at Dom even and calm... that's still strange.

If Rome wasn't already family, and they didn't both already know it, the next thing he's going to ask would be a blanket invitation to be decked. There are things you don't ask, and things you don't talk about -- but every single time he's kept secrets from his family, it's been the wrong damn choice. "What's still riding you so hard?"

Rome's eyes flash when they widen, then narrow, his shoulders tensing -- his tells are still too obvious. But they both know Rome won't hit him, and Rome's fists don't even clench. "Nothing."

"You're not a good enough liar to pull it off with me, Rome."

"Nothing that matters," and the flat way it comes out says that Rome at least thinks he means it. Or ought to mean it.

"If it didn't matter, you'd be in bed, not out here wearing more holes in what they call carpet here."

"I said it didn't matter. So it don't matter. You expect me to believe you don't sometimes have bad nights?"

"Show me someone our age that doesn't, and we're looking at a new target..." Anyone their age that's had it easy enough that they never have a sleepless night.. probably has more than enough of at least one thing they're interested in to be worth the time to plan the job. "Not the point."

"So get to the point."

"Do you even know how torqued you sound?" Quiet, easy voice, looking across the distance between them. "I'm not trying to mess with you -- you're family. But if you expect me not to see something wrong... "

"Dom." Soft and still flat, crossing his arms over his chest. "I told you. This ain't shit. You dig?"

"I hear you saying so -- know you think so." He's not accusing Rome of lying, and that needs to be real obvious. He just knows all about the lies you tell yourself to be able to deal. "My eyes pick up something a little different."

"Maybe you need your eyes checked."

"Heard that one coming. There's nothing wrong with my eyes. Now, or a couple months back." He'd been idly trying to remember if anything off had happened then, while he'd waited for Rome to decide what to do about the fact that Dom wasn't just letting him brood. He hasn't been able to place it yet.

"This ain't shit. I'm just thinking. It ain't that easy, I gotta work at it."

Dom gives him the quiet, slow chuckle that means he doesn't believe it, but yeah, it's a decent line, and leans back in the chair, waiting Rome out.

"Sometimes I just get bad nights. Ain't nothing important." His eyes flash when he lowers his head, his shoulders shifting. That sharp, still tension coming out a little, bleeding into Rome's usual wild. He's not good at stonewalling. "You get it."

Dom lifts his head a little more, and looks across the distance between them. "Yeah... I do. And I get why you back Bri off every time." He stops for a second, lets that stand for a minute. "But if it's messing with you, it's important."

He can watch that cracking the cool Rome shouldn't have. "Just thinking," he says again, half-looks away. "'Bout nothing important. Just old shit."

So goddamn stubborn -- what, like that he always finds and keeps the stubborn ones ought to be news to anyone? The thought might make him smile, later. Right now, that stubborn is starting to crack. He's just got to put a little more pressure on. This would be easier, a little, if he could say some of what he's thinking, put the concern behind why he's pushing into words -- but that wold just give Pearce a way to avoid him by mockery. "Yeah... people tend to come out with a lot of that... lot of different kinds, too."

"Not that matters. Just old shit." Rome looks back at him, a half-wary flick of his eyes.

"Didn't I just say something about that?"

Soft, low rasp of a laugh, and the closest thing he's seen to a smile since this started. "Yeah."

"So drop that line already."

"Ain't nothing to drop it for. Just old shit. Deals," Rome says, and the stillness of his face is its own tell. Rome hadn't meant to say that, doesn't like that he did all that much, and that last word is about everything Dom needs to know.

Deals. Deals... and that a mouthy, stubborn punk that still doesn't fight well came out of prison in one piece. Yeah... he'd figured that was in there somewhere.

Really no damn wonder he wouldn't talk to Brian. But at least he's saying 'deals' instead of anything that would mean worse. That's... in some ways, it's better than what he'd half started assuming was behind these moods.

"Sometimes you have to make them," he says, after a moment or two, quiet, soft. Everyone does, eventually. The only thing is how you live with them.

The tight line of his arms eases a little, Rome hearing what he isn't saying enough to calm down some. "Yeah."

"Seems like they got you through, at least."

"Ain't you smart today."

He laughs a little at the edgy snap of Rome's voice, and shrugs one shoulder. Thinks for a second or two about how to say the rest what he wants to get across. "Sometimes I can figure out the important part."

Rome relaxes more for that, just like Dom had meant him to. "Everybody needs a talent, homie."

Dom laughs, low and openly amused, and shakes his head a little, "Well... that might be a first."

"It's all right. I know you can't be as talented as me." Flash of his teeth when he grins, wide and broad, and it's not as real as it ought to be. But it's closer.

Dom rolls his eyes, tips his head back to laugh again. Whatever, Rome...

***

It's easier to work with Dom now, even when ain't neither of them saying nothing. Don't really need to in a garage, especially not when they're working on separate cars. Rome looks up, stretches, rolls his head towards Dom to ask if he wants a beer, too.

This ain't hardly the first time he's seen Dom in garage slacks and a beat-up tank, but something in the way he's standing, casual stretch for the wrench, means Rome can't stop looking at him. Grease stains on his hands, smeared black over calluses, and the easy strength in the muscle Rome's always seen. For a second Rome can taste all that skin. Salty-bright and smooth.

Aw, hell.

Heat curling up slow and lazy in his gut, the blood rising under his skin, and Rome can feel the look that wants to settle on his face, the broad, slick spread of the smile his mouth wants to make.

He looks back down at the hood under his hands instead, the ugly-ass pattern he's covering up. Honestly, he'd had to get this car away from that dude just because the paint job was so *ugly*. Clean, sleek lines of the body that need a brighter color than dull red, decoration less clunky than this heavy thick-drawn shit. Something light and quick and hard, skimming over her like gold-bronze skin over muscle, sweat-sheened and -- dammit.

Why the *hell* does he have to end up agreeing with Brian about this, too?

Because it's not just Dom's easy grace, all that muscle and dark-eyed heat, or the solid strength of him. It's that calm arrogance, all the sure and certain cool, and the sharp-edged way he laughs. The soft curve of his mouth with Mia, with Brian.

Hell. Don't that just put a brand-new twist on it? Figuring out what it took to get Dom's attention wasn't supposed to mean Dom got *his*.

'Course, Rome thinks, and smirks to himself, knowing he's got more than one reason for liking to bust up Dom's cool doesn't mean he's got to *stop*.

***

God, but it's good to be home, Brian thinks. He's leaning on the wall of the cramped apartment they're in for the moment with his eyes half-closed, listening to Mia and Dom -- and Rome, and what is *up* with that? -- 'discuss' what they're doing for dinner in the kitchen barely four feet away. He knows better than to get in the middle of that, learned that back in LA the first time. Too bad Rome didn't, except for how he's really enjoying taking Mia's side to mess with Dom.

It was good to just be with Mia for a while, let the two of them figure out how to smooth out some of the edges still between them when nobody else is there. Even better to find out that they make a really good team, and to see the sharpness Mia lets out easier when Dom's not there. She's still got a wicked sense of humor, a reckless streak, and damn but her tongue can be a razor when she's not happy about something. The way she smiles when she is happy and half trying not to show it still melts his spine... but they're friends. And that's the way it needs to stay, because she deserves a hell of a lot better than he could give her any more.

Rome's voice goes up a little more in volume and Dom's rumbles over it, deep and steady -- so damn good to be home. It takes him a second to realize that the way Rome's laughing...

Oh, he knows that laugh. He knows if he opens his eyes he'll see Rome's 'come get me' smile, the shift of his weight that means he's just inviting it, the tip of his head that's never anything but intimate, and the way his eyes light on that kind of tone.

Holy shit.

Maybe it worked?

He's not sure he believes his ears, so he looks up enough to see... and yeah. He wasn't wrong. He's never seen Rome turn that smile on anyone else -- it's not the one he uses with girls. He's daring Dom, pushing... asking, and that --

It feels like his brain stops working for a second when he looks past Rome at Dom and sees Dom looking nowhere but at the lines of Rome's body. Long moment, and another, before Mia bats at her brother's shoulder and Dom looks back at her. The tension breaks easy and he can finally think again. Yeah, it sure looks like leaving the two of them to work with each other did *just* fine.

Thank God.

Dom shakes his head and gives up on whatever he was arguing with them about -- Brian doesn't burn water, but that's about as far as his cooking goes. Mia and Dom arguing in two languages about what spices she's using is more than he can keep up with -- and comes around the bar-divider Rome was leaning over to head for the living room. He turns as he passes Rome, his hand wrapping around Rome's shoulder for a second, gold-shaded skin on Rome's dark making heat coil up Brian's spine. Even when he was setting this up, he hadn't really let himself *see* what they'd look like together.

Now he can't see anything else.

Rome's deep walnut skin and all of his pushy flare and intent up against all of Dom's honey-gold steady strength in the kind of kiss that starts five-alarm fires, and --

Rome turns his head to look at Dom better, his taunting, teasing smile bright, until Rome's eyes meet Brian's, and that smile goes sharp, spreads over his face slow and desert-hot.

Yeah... what he's thinking probably is just that obvious, at least to Rome. He smiles a little, mostly in the left corner of his mouth, leaning back harder against the wall as he rolls his shoulders back a little.

Answering tilt up of Rome's eyebrow, amusement and agreement, before he glances at Dom again. Slow, thoughtful tip of his head, half-bared throat gleaming.

Brian can't see Dom's expression, hasn't been able to since he turned back towards Rome -- he doesn't need to. Not with the way Dom's body shifts, hand sliding up from the casual 'hey there' touch on his shoulder to the back of Rome's neck for a second, before it drops away.

He can see the flare of Rome's eyes from here, one fast, half-hidden full-body shudder before Rome drags his game face back on, bares his teeth at Dom in a wide, dare-you grin.

He's on Rome's side about this one. That damned well wasn't fair, especially when Mia's only got her back turned to them from some kind of luck and there's going to be dinner to get through before they can disappear. But damn, that moment between Dom touching him and Rome hauling himself back under control, that second when all three of them have to have known Rome was *on*. He's under control again now -- it's not by much. Patient isn't one of his best features, and he's going to have to be. No way are they rushing this.

Dom's laughter ripples, lazy and slow, and Brian doesn't even try to hide everything he knows is on his face as Dom turns back around. All that steady, easy certainty on his face mixed with the trace of the 'gotcha' smile still on his lips and in his eyes.

It takes him a minute to see anything but that smile, smug and pleased and edging on hungry. Looking at Rome instead doesn't help. The long line of his spine where he's back to half-lounging on the kitchen bar, and the way his eyes glitter. He's looking calm, for Rome, game face on, but Brian knows just how fast he could break that open. Him and Dom. He hadn't let himself think about this in any detail, and now's *really* not the moment to change that.

It's not... that doesn't mean he doesn't want to. It's just going to have to wait. He takes a breath, lets his cool come back over his eyes, and pushed off the wall to walk over towards the join of the bar and the wall. Mia must hear him coming, because she says towards the stove, "Oh, no, not all three of you. This'll be on in twenty now that *someone's* decided I know what I'm doing, go find a futbol game or something in the meantime."

He looks at Dom, grins -- Dom grins back, and it's "Yes, Mia," from both of them.

"Y'all so whipped," from Rome, shaking his head, his grin wide and laughing and still just a little edged.

"Right, you can handle the dishes, Roman," Mia says without missing a beat, and Brian tells himself to tell her 'thank you' later, because the laughter at Rome's 'aw, shit' expression is exactly what he needs to get back under control.

***

It's not as late as he thinks it should be, he's sure of that. It's plenty late enough, by the way the light is coming in off the street. Or isn't. It's not like he really cares. Mia's out with some of the girls from two floors up, has been since they finished dinner, and... it hadn't taken long for all three of them to be in Dom's bed. Such as it is. It's nothing like big enough for them, but they managed just fine. God. Did they ever. He's bone-deep tired, sore in damned perfect ways, and warm. Almost too warm, but that's Rome and Dom. Somehow he's not surprised that they wound up finally collapsing with him between the two of them.

Rome's draped against his left side, arm slung over his waist under the thin sheet, warm and lax, and by the way his breathing feels he's going to be asleep in the next two minutes. Dom's right arm is the pillow under his neck, and he's not planning on giving it up any time soon. But what pulled him up out of half-asleep already was the feel of Dom's left arm moving from a hand on his chest to off him and on Rome. ...on the back of Rome's neck, he sees once he's got his eyes adjusted. Rome shifts a little, but he's just pressing back into it a little. Good. Dom's thigh is heavy over his.

Rome's back is warm under his hand, still vaguely sticky with drying sweat and saliva, and pulling apart later is going to sting. Not the first time. Dom's hip is hard, sharp bone under the heel of his other hand, powerful muscle under his fingers, and he really, *really* wishes he could see what the three of them look like tangled together like this. His skin's still singing in places from Dom's teeth, Rome's, and their hands.

Brian shuts his eyes again, listens to the deep, slow wash of Dom's breathing, Rome's heart pounding steady under Brian's spread fingers. He's nearly dozing between them when Dom eventually moves, drawing his arm carefully out from under Brian's head, slipping away. Rome twitches, jerks, half-waking, tensing next to Brian.

He's on Rome's side, and his hand follows Dom's move, catching at him before he really knows he's moving, even as his other hand spreads wider on Rome's back. No, damn it, get back here, Brian thinks fuzzily, and knows better than to say.

"Easy," Dom rumbles, one hand settling on Brian's shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute." Gentle press of his other hand between Rome's shoulder blades, the edge of his fingers brushing Brian's arm, stroking the line of Rome's spine. Brian knows Rome's not awake enough to have understood what Dom said -- he's barely that awake -- but Rome makes a soft noise anyway, a purring hum low in his throat, and settles, his breathing easing as he goes back to sleep.

It is his b -- the sleepy thought is cut off when he realizes that Rome just went back to sleep for Dom petting him, the same way he does with *him *, and he feels the damn-fool smile spreading wide over his face. 'Not my family' -- he is now, Rome. He looks up, looking at Dom. He can't see his face all that clearly, but he knows Dom's body, knows the softness that set of his jaw and his shoulders says. Dom knows, too -- maybe even better than he does -- what that means. He lets his hand come up over Dom's on his shoulder for a second, slow squeeze, and lets go. He's pretty sure he's going to be asleep before Dom gets back. That's fine.

They're more than fine.


End file.
